What is this thing we call murder? Should there be a corpse, a murderer and evidence for murder? What if I say that people die from murder every day in the world without a corpse, murderer and evidence?
I can hear you say how it can happen. That is, a person does not need a knife, weapon or other tools to kill another person. People's words and actions can also lead them to commit a murder. As we know today, the use of technology is quite common. With the development of technology, now everyone can communicate with each other faster, they can make friends and exchange information faster.
We agree that technology provides us a lot of convenience, but as everything else, technology also has a dark side. With such easy access to technology, the behavior of using digital communication tools to bully a person has started to increase. The concept called cyberbullying; These are behaviors that are deliberate, repeated and adversely harmful to the other person using technological tools.
Thanks to the advantage of concealing identity, communication established with these tools enables easy victim selection and facilitates the rapid spread of hurtful messages containing swearing, insults and threats to a large number of people (Strom & Strom, 2004). Belsey (2006) defined cyberbullying as “a type of bullying that includes deliberate, repetitive and hostile behavior designed by an individual or group to harm others using information and communication technologies”. In the study conducted by Arıcak (2009), it was found that the group who did not commit cyberbullying and was not exposed to cyberbullying showed less psychiatric symptoms than cyber bullies and victims. Hinduja and Patchin (2009) found that when cyber victimization is combined with stressful living conditions, individuals exhibit behaviors that can lead to suicide.
In addition to being exposed to cyberbullying, it has been determined that cyberbullying is also related to various problems. Arıcak (2009) found that having feelings of hostility to other individuals and psychoticism positively predict cyberbullying. In fact, cyberbullying is face-to-face bullying in daily life on the internet. The only difference is that the communication medium is the internet and is made through technological devices. Although there is no victim or a murderer in cyberbullying, the victim is psychologically damaged and kind of massacred. According to the research; While 1 out of every 4 children is exposed to cyberbullying, 1 out of 6 children commit cyberbullying. It is possible to mention several types of cyberbullying.
The first of these is "disclosure". What we call disclosure is a type of cyberbullying done to cause victim's photos and videos to spread without permission and cause them to lose their dignity. Trolling, targeting and lynching, humiliating the individual in a virtual environment are also types of cyberbullying. There are signs that show children and young people experiencing cyberbullying. Among these signals; a rapid change in the child / young person's eating, sleep and mood, constant irritability, abruptly moving away from technological devices while using technological devices, feeling anxious when a mail or a message arrives, and changing routine habits. So how can we protect our child from cyberbullying?
As a precaution, if she encounters any problems on social media and networks, you can talk about her sharing it with you. You can tell your child about the advantages and disadvantages of technology. So if your child is a cyberbully? In this case, banning the internet and social media completely will not give you a permanent result. You should turn to the source of the problem, explain in a simple language that even the smallest thing he says will have a very negative effect on the other side, and get help from an expert in this regard.
Ece Can, intern@ICDET