Digital Mental Disorder

Neelesh Kajale Kajale Author

Cyberbullying

Advances in technology have helped us getting ourselves online in a matter of clicks in seconds. Anybody with internet access can participate in this large, global WWW (Wild Wild West). These developments are very positive, but they also have some negative and dangerous possibilities attached to this freedom of participation especially for innocent children accessing the internet.

In a typical neighborhood or society we grow in, there are good people, bad people and really nasty people all around us. People with bad intentions lurk around the corners waiting for a chance to attack us. Internet community also reflects the same patterns of human behavior. There are good people contributing immensely to collective knowledge and intelligence in the internet community. Then there are people with malicious intentions, who are waiting for us to expose our weaknesses online so that they can take advantage of our lack of awareness or plain stupidity.

Cyberbullying is a new age mental sickness in Internet community which is equivalent of social Intimidation, abuse and misuse of privileges of being a cyber-citizen. It can be defined as a willful and deliberate online interaction carried out by an individual or a group of people using computers, mobile phones, or any other devices connected to internet.

Cyberbullying takes on many different forms. Exclusion, Harassment, Trolling, Flaming, Cyberstalking, Dissing, Fraping, Doxing, Griefing are some of the terms used to describe different types of cyberbullying. Cyberbullying can take place through emails, online discussion forums, social networking groups and sites, chatting groups and any other digital forms of communications where people can interact with each other.

Let us have a look at some of the types of digital abuse.

Exclusion is a deliberate attempt to exclude a certain individual from online groups.

Harassment is repeatedly sending malicious messages to someone online to disturb or intimidate him or her.

Trolling is a common form of cyberbullying in an online community such as social media or online gaming in order to elicit a reaction, disruption by starting arguments or upsetting people by posting inflammatory messages. Intention of trolling is to provoke readers into an emotional response.

Flaming is a typical online fight through emails or social networking groups or instant messaging apps where angry and rude messages with personal insults and comments are exchanged.

Cyberstalking is a continuous attempt made to establish contact with our without our consent. Cyberstalking is an extremely dangerous form of cyberbullying wherein adults use the internet to contact and attempt to meet with young people for sexual purposes which can have very serious consequences if not stopped immediately.

Dissing is the act of sharing or posting personal sensitive information about us online to damage our reputation or relationships with other. Most of the time dissing attempts are made by the people close to us, who know about us.

Fraping is when somebody logs into our social networking account and posts inappropriate messages or comments using our profiles.

Doxing or doxxing is collecting personal information of an individual such as home address, birthdate, contact information and private sensitive data and posting it online without his or her consent or knowledge.

Griefing is a new form of cyberbullying. It does not use email messages or social media. Griefing happens on interactive multiplayer online video games. It is a term used to describe a cyberbully causing frustration to the target individual and his/her friends by not following the rules of an interactive online video game.

There are so many things that can be used with malicious intents. We need to be careful and vigilant.

The threat getting ominous day by day

Cyberbullying risk is growing at a very fast rate. It can be a bigger threat than traditional bullying due to anonymity of users in the cyber space. Impersonation is very easy and fear of getting caught is minimal. These reasons are making more and more sick minds attempt cyberbullying.

Second biggest reason behind increase in cyberbullying incidents is lack of supervision. It is extremely difficult to supervise internet usage of an individual. We cannot monitor online activities of our children and others continuously.

Third important point is about the possibility of intimidating a victim at all the places whenever he comes online. Victims can run away from traditional bullying and go home where they are safe. Since most of us frequent users of internet at almost every place possible, victims are no longer safe even in their homes.

Fourth important aspect of cyberbullying is Humiliation. Social acceptance and online image are very important for us. Any use and circulation of sensitive or damaging videos or images can dent our image very fast. Sharing of these videos or images cannot be controlled in any way.

Categories: : Non-Fiction