Cyberbullying in Girls
Cyberbullying refers to the self-willed and recurred harm inflicted through computers, mobile phones, and other electronic devices, especially over the internet, SMS, instant messages, and email (Hinduja et al, 2014). Cyberbullying has been greatly fostered by the exponential growth of social media platforms, where people post and comment on posts, and share photos and videos. The perpetrators, mostly boys prey on the victim’s posts, mostly girls, comments, or photos and videos shared either on their wall or sent privately through direct messages and may use them as leverage to demand favors against the victim’s will. Cyberbullies then publicly share the victim’s explicit content across social media platforms as a form of retaliation, or with the intent of intimidating the victim by having her social media friends troll her over the incident, and this may be persuasive and long-lasting. Cyberbullying takes many forms including gossip, harassment, posts or emails, flaming, body-shaming, and impersonation, whereby a cyberbully fakes their social media profile impersonating the victim then posts/sends intimidating content to evoke their friends to ridicule them. it is mostly gendered and sexualized and spotlights girls making boys invisible. (Mishna, et al. 2020). Cyberbullying subjects’ girls to violent acts to include harassment, abuse, violence, and discrimination, which in extreme cases result in physical bullying (Mishna, et al. 2020). Girls are more targeted by cyberbullying than boys and they experience more severe effects than boys. they experience, low self-esteem, depression, isolation and in some cases commit suicide.
Cyberbullying has been on the rise. and the prevalence of girls’ victimization is 3 times higher than boys (Nixon, 2014). Girls from tweenies, teenagers, and young adults mostly report being victims of spread rumors and lies, stalking, harassment and threats (Snell & Englander, 2010). On many occasions, girls’ cyberbullying involves publicizing their explicit pictures privately shared with the bully, who are mostly friendly and seem harmless before the bullying. After having these photos, they demand favors like visits and sex and threaten to post their photos if they do not comply. In 2012, Amanda Todd, a 15-year old Canadian student, shared her never-ending story of the harm cyberbullying brought into her life. In 7th grade, she sent a picture of her boobs to a boy she met online and later he demanded to have sex with her, he knew Amanda’s address, friends and family, from stalking, and threatened to share the photo of her boobs if she turned him down. The bully publicized Amanda’s explicit photos making her subject to anxiety, major depression, and panic disorder, she lost friends, hopped from school to school but it never got better, she harmed herself and attempted suicide multiple times, and she hanged herself about 5 weeks after sharing her story (Dean, 2012). Amanda’s traumatic story should serve as a warning and educate the world on the negative impacts of cyberbullying.
Cyberbullying venues are numerous. Myspace, texting, Twitter, IMing, Facebook, and emails are the most common and easily accessible venues (Favela, 2010). Girls are more drawn to this bullying because they aren’t concerned with developing physical dominance, they’re oriented on relational aggression like rumors and exclusion, and they rely on language aggression which is conducive to online platforms (Fovela, 2010).
Cyberbullying causes depression in girls. Girls are naturally more emotional than boys which makes them more vulnerable. Cyberbullying subject girls to drastic changes in moods and emotions and make them feel frustrated and helpless. This builds up stress that leads to depression, which in several instances lead to suicide. Depression affects the girls’ social lives and develop into dangerous stigmas, isolation and harmful shame from peers. They’re often humiliated by their peers driving them into isolation that intensifies their feeling of worthlessness and they often begin using substance and alcohol. Research establishes that about 24% of bullied teens drink alcohol after the incident, 15% smoke marijuana, and 12% use tobacco by tenth grade majorly due to depression (Rapaport, 2017). Reliance on drugs leads to further deteriorated health as smoking adversely affects respiratory health, alcohol affects the liver, and they generally worsen the manifested mental health effects. Cyberbullying pushed girls to the edge of depression that is more than often manifested through substance abuse.
Cyberbullying victims have low self-esteem and often feel useless and unworthy. Online bullying, especially on social media platforms, reach to numerous people, keeps spreading and cannot be stopped or undone (Fovela, 2010). This makes the victim be ridiculed online, in their schools, by their friends and walkers by, they lack friends and peace. Cyberbullying in girls often involves revealing explicit content and body shaming. Taking an instance of body shaming, the victimized girl will be ridiculed over her body by her friends and even people close to them making her hate herself and feel valueless. This makes her lose courage and have low self-esteem. Low self-esteem among girls results in retaliatory behavior like starving to cut weight if she was body-shamed for being fat and hating certain parts of their body. Furthermore, it leads to loss of interest in school, and life in general, and contributes to self-harm and suicidal thoughts.
Cyberbullied girls tend to isolate themselves from their peers, close friends, and at times even parents. Social isolation among victims can be caused by the need to distance from everyone due to the fear of being humiliated and/or the need to keep the instance private which makes them suffer in silence. A study on the effects of cyberbullying and social anxiety and withdrawal established that girls have significantly more social anxiety than boys (Coelho & Romao, 2018). Social isolation is often coupled with emotional isolation since cyberbullying creates feelings of intense shame and embarrassment that the victims don’t want to talk about it with anyone thus stay away from everyone. Victimized girls are also afraid that the bully will retaliate thus maintain a low profile by staying alone in school and at home. Social isolation intensifies low self-esteem and depression; however, victims feel the pressure to remain quiet and cut themselves off social groups that may humiliate or question them about the bullying incident. Moreover, isolation leads to higher levels of stress and inflammation, dementia, low self-esteem, depression and posttraumatic stress (PTSD).
Cyberbullying is closely associated with suicidal thoughts amongst victims, especially girls.
Research posits that while boys are more involved in physical bullying as victims or offenders, girls are more involved in online bullying. After being cyberbullied, boys are more likely to bully their peers while girls tend to partake in indirect and relational forms of aggression (Hinduja & Patchin, 2018).
Girls are more susceptible to maladaptive emotional problems including anger, self-pity, and depression, and due to anonymity and range of cyberbullying, it causes hopelessness and helplessness. In a 2015 study, about 17% of cyberbullied teenagers considered attempting suicide, 14% planned, and 8% attempted suicide and for these attempts, girls were more involved than boys (Hinduja & Patchin, 2018). Therefore, cyberbullying causes suicidal thoughts to the victimized girls and they tend to attempt or succeed at it more than boys.
In conclusion, girls are more likely to be affected by cyberbullying and experience more severe effects than boys. They are mostly cyberbullied by people close to them who seemed harmless before the incident and after being bullied, girls tend to dissociate themselves socially from their friends and family. This results in emotional and social isolation that intensifies stress and low self-esteem and they begin feeling lonely, helpless and hopeless. It also makes them embarrassed and humiliated and often develop suicidal thoughts and may end up committing suicide. Girls are more adversely affected by cyberbullying and effective measures must be formulated to reduce its prevalence. Cyberbullying inflicts lasting emotional and physical health issues. It has been blamed for several health effects including depression, anxiety and suicidal behavior among girls. With a focus on curbing cyber bullying it recommendable to encourage girls to speak to adults to include parents and guardians in case they are being bullied online. It is also recommendable for women and young girls to stand up against bullies instead of just watching men and boys bully their fellow women on social media platforms.
References
Chan, H. C., & Wong, D. S. (2019). Traditional school bullying and cyberbullying perpetration: Examining the psychosocial characteristics of Hong Kong male and female adolescents. Youth & Society, 51(1), 3-29. Retrieved 9 April 2020 from https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Heng_choon_oliver_Chan/publication/304746349_ Traditional_School_Bullying_and_Cyberbullying_Perpetration_Examining_the_Psychos ocial_Characteristics_of_Hong_Kong_Male_and_Female_Adolescents/links/5e1ea1f245 851536bfe64a16/Traditional-School-Bullying-and-Cyberbullying-Perpetration- Examining-the-Psychosocial-Characteristics-of-Hong-Kong-Male-and-Female- Adolescents.pdf
Coelho, V. A., & Romao, A. M. (2018). The relation between social anxiety, social withdrawal and (cyber) bullying roles: A multilevel analysis. Computers in Human Behavior, 86, 218-226. Retrieved 9 April 2020 from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563218302127
Favela, L. O. (2010). Female cyberbullying: Causes and prevention strategies. Inquiries Journal, 2(11). Retrieved 9 April 2020 from http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/322/female- cyberbullying-causes-and-prevention-strategies
Hinduja, S., & Patchin, J. W. (2019). Connecting adolescent suicide to the severity of bullying and cyberbullying. Journal of school violence, 18(3), 333-346. Retrieved 9 April 2020 fromhttps://www.researchgate.net/publication/327167587_Connecting_Adolescent_Sui de_to_the_Severity_of_Bullying_and_Cyberbullying
Mishna, F., Schwan, K. J., Birze, A., Van Wert, M., Lacombe-Duncan, A., McInroy, L., & Attar- Schwartz, S. (2018). Gendered and sexualized bullying and cyber bullying: Spotlighting girls and making boys invisible. Youth & Society, 0044118X18757150. Retrieved 9 April 2020 from https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0044118X18757150
Dean, M., (2012). The Story of Amanda Todd. Retrieved 9 April 2020 from; https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-story-of-amanda-todd
Nixon, C. L. (2014). Current perspectives: the impact of cyberbullying on adolescent health. Adolescent health, medicine and therapeutics, 5, 143. Retrieved 9 April 2020 from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4126576/
Rapaport, L. (2017). Bullied Teens More Likely to Smoke, Drink and Use Drugs. Retrieved 9 April 2020 from https://www.psychcongress.com/news/bullied-teens-more-likely-smoke- drink-and-use-drugs
Snell, P. A., & Englander, E. (2010). Cyberbullying victimization and behaviors among girls: Applying research findings in the field. Journal of Social Sciences. Retrieved 9 April 2020 from https://vc.bridgew.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1003&context=marc_pubs
