All friends make fun of one other, but it can be difficult to know whether someone is joking or attempting to hurt you, especially online. Sometimes they'll laugh it off with a "just kidding," or "don't take it so seriously." However, if you are hurt or believe that others are laughing at you rather than with you, the joke has gone too far. If it continues after you have requested the offender to stop and you are still unhappy, this may be considered bullying. When bullying occurs online, it can result in unwanted attention from a large number of people, including strangers.This phenomenon is called cyberbullying. Cyberbullying happens everyday in social media. Calling out cyber bullies is not enough in stopping cyberbullying. We must recognize that everyone deserves respect online and in the real world. Cyberbullying includes behaviors such as publishing images or videos of someone without their consent in order to shame them, make them feel awful about themselves, or exact retribution for a lost connection or relationship , Name-calling, teasing, belittling, mocking or social exclusion,Spreading false rumors, Leaking an individual’s personal information such as home address or phone number to peer groups to invade privacy and encourage personal attacks and etc.
Here are the things to limit and prevent your exposure to cyberbullying:
Block and report cyberbullies on social media. Doing so won’t inflame an already difficult situation. Doing this will protect your mental peace and will help you get rid of the bullies in social media.
Use privacy settings to protect personal posts on social media from being accessed by strangers. Your personal posts must be published and only accessible to your peers and families to avoid exposure from the cyber bullies.
Wait for at least 60 minutes before acting on an impulse to share sensitive photos, videos or information with a peer. Sometimes, we are not aware of the consequences we face on social media. Impulsive action sometimes worsen the situation.
Never answer unless a parent encourages you to set a firm boundary and take a screenshot of your request.— for example, “Please stop saying these things to me,” “I don’t want you to treat me this way” — so it can be used as evidence of online harassment, if needed.
If you are a parent, establish a good relationship with your son/daughter so they freely open up and voice out their cyber bullying problems to you. Give your son/daughter a time to trust you and do not force them to speak up when they are not willing to.
Educate them about cyberbullying and its consequences. Give them concrete examples and real situations of it.
One best way to prevent cyberbullying is to give them strategies on how to handle it to save face and revert the attention back to the cyber bully.
Monitor their online activity, as a parent, you can install activity monitoring applications so that you would know how they inouTube, Tik Tok, facebook, snapchat, and Instagram), the viewing of all text messages (even deleted ones), call logs, and general online behavior. You can even block and control the child’s phone remotely interact with their peers. The apps can monitor social media apps like.
Luckily, schools nowadays are aware of cyberbullying. Schools are now conducting seminars and forums about cyberbullying awareness. This is a great help for students who keep experiencing cyberbullying. They can openly share their ideas about cyberbullying and learn things they did not know about the issue. In this way, schools can empower cyberbullying awareness and prevent this issue.
Lastly, parents and youth must create a community to express a cohesive message against cyberbullying.
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