Digital Parenting: Some Facts About Cyberbullying

While online harassment is like an everyday experience for most of the teens out there, it seems like no one is safe from it. Regardless of age and gender, their social standard, or identity, everyone is now prone to cyberbullying because of the rise in technologies. Read about how young people, in particular, are the target of this activity. However, if you know some of the facts about cyberbullying, you can save yourself.

If you are a part of public forums, or social media platforms, cyberbullying is hard to resist. However, if you know how to use that block button or how to take care of your privacy settings, you can save it from happening. But, there are people out there who even make online dummies and personate to be someone else just to make your digital life hell.

Some Statistical Facts About Cyberbullying:

Here some of the statistical details about cyberbullying being recorded in the past few years. Parents need to know these facts to analyze how much their kid is prone to this act.

1. 60% of youth is a victim of online harassment and they haven’t done anything.
2. Only 1 in 10 victims dare to inform any elder about cyberbullying.
3. Most people report facing cyberbullying on Instagram.
4. About half of LGBTQ+ students reportedly experience online harassment. It is much higher than the average rate.
5. Girls are more likely to be harassed than boys. 15% of girls have been the victim of at least four different types of harassment online as compared to 6% of the boys.
6. 23% of students have reported that they have done something mean to others. Whereas, 27% have reported that they have experienced that.
7. About 37% of young people from 12-17 have faced online bullying. 30% reported that they have experienced it for more than one time.
8. 4 out of 5 students said that they would like to interfere in this harassment if they would be able to do it anonymously.

These facts prove that nearly nobody is safe from this harassment. However, society and families should encourage kids to share every time something bad happens.

Five Important Facts About Cyberbullying

The following are some more common non-statistical facts about cyberbullying that will help you understand the scenario in a better way.

1. It Is Mostly Someone They Know

There was a survey presented at the American Sociological Associations’ meeting in 2016. Its summary was as follows:

“Youth cyberbullying is dramatically more likely to occur between current or former friends and dating partners than between students who were never friends or in a romantic relationship.”

Kids are more likely to be targeted by someone they know. Mostly the strangers develop a relationship with the kids and then come too close to bully them. There are a lot of ways to access the kids and unfortunately, kids hardly know about their privacy on the internet.

2. It Is Equally Bad in Adulthood

The Department of Justice has estimated that as of now, 850,000 adults are suffering from cyberbullying, and most of them are women. Forty percent of women are facing sexual harassment online. Also, it is seen that on a daily basis, almost every 10 seconds people call women “whore” or “slut” on Twitter. It imposes negative effects on adults as well. Cyberbullying has no age limit. Read about what the Law can do about online harassment here.

3. It Has a Long-Lasting Emotional Impact

Cyberbullying is not only about spreading rumors or trying to ruin someone’s future, but it is also about inflicting mental stress and psychological pain. A study was conducted in 2014 that showed how online harassment is linked to depression, lower self-esteem, a sense of powerlessness, and other psychological issues.

It is observed that these issues don’t just vanish with the end of cyberbullying. These have a long-lasting effect on someone’s mind and sometimes, the pain goes on for the whole lifetime. Therefore, it's true that the effects of cyberbullying are long-lasting. 

4. Kids Often Cyberbully Their Teachers

This tendency has been observed where kids cyberbully their elders, even teachers, the same way they do with their classmates. They even get to the point where they do cyber baiting. Cyberbaiting happens when the student induces anger in the teacher and videotapes that reaction to post online. This is all done to humiliate the teacher.

5. Cyberbullying Has Many Forms

Kids text, share photos, send messages, and do a lot of other stuff online. When they use social media and the internet more than adults, they make the most out of these activities. Here are some of the primary ways people cyberbully others. It includes impersonating someone, harassment, using photographs for the wrong use, and other stuff.

Learn about more facts about cyberbullying here: https://www.verywellfamily.com/facts-about-cyberbullying-for-educators-460708

What Steps Should Parents Take?

The use of a parental control app has revolutionized parenting. Now, with the parental control app, not only parents can know what is going on with their kids, they can make the necessary interventions as well. SecureTeen is the best parental control app for monitoring kids, managing their apps, managing their screen time and much more. It offers so many features for the safety of kids.

Once you monitor them, you know when they are hiding something and when something wrong is happening with them. You can plan your intervention then and help them out in this tough situation. The intervention and the help should be planned out in a way that they don’t feel betrayed. Or that their privacy is breached. Parenting becomes tough when they are teens.

If you want to protect your kid, using parental control apps must be accompanied by the correct level of trust. If you want to teach them how to fight the bullies and not let them affect their mental piece, you must first encourage them to confide in you.

When they trust you, they automatically share their stress with you. Teens need confidence and love to be open. Otherwise, there are a lot of teens out there who are suffering from severe issues and haven’t even reported to anyone.