Cyberbullying or cyberbullying: What is it, what are its causes and how can we prevent it?

cyber bullying it is a criminal act that can lead its victim to suicide. Most of the people involved in this type of act are young people (both the aggressor and the victim), and this is due to a lack of communication with their parents.

If you notice or think your child may be facing these types of actswe recommend that you read below, as we will explain everything you need so you can take Quick actions and prevent any accidents.

Let’s remember that bullying affects the mind first, and even if it is virtual, it can bring unpleasant consequences. As responsible for those young We must be vigilant in any situation.

What is cyberbullying? The new form of digital harassment

We are currently witnessing many cyber attacks considered cyberbullying, but this goes beyond a simple comment on social networks. This type of attack makes use of all telematic means, such as mobile telephony, online video games and the Internet.

His principal object is to disturb the tranquility of the victim causing psychological stress, which if not attended to in time can present many risks. Let’s remember that each person is a world, and that our mind works 24 hours a day, so the victim can react in any way.

The reality is that these types of attacks are received mainly by young people, and only by a small adult population. Different cases can be seen, which is an attack by adults on children, or also by minors at both ends.

In most of the recorded cases shows a level of aggressiveness in both parties, both in the aggressor and in the victim, being a characteristic quite alarming in minors.

This cyber attack totally torments the peace of mind of the youth or child, where can respond very aggressively to such threats. The affected person is driven to commit acts of desperation, even attacking another person or even killing them.

According to the studies carried out by INTECO, it is considered that the aggressor drains all his family or environmental situation through the Internet, harming another person.

What are the main causes that can make you suffer from cyberbullying?

This is very serious, so that we must always know what its causes are, to be able to stop them in time, and then it’s not too late. Let us remember that the psychological damage it is one of the strongest.

Social networks and the Internet

Every day social networks on the Internet grow, and so does the number of users. these us allow us to communicate via instant messaging with anyone; but just as it is something very beneficial, it is also used to persecute people, and send messages considered as cyberbullying.

High traffic by youth and children

We support the virtual world being for all ages, but in a moderate way, assuming that young people spend a lot of time in this mediuminteracting with many people and absorbing unsuitable personalities and behaviors.

We must know that in this world we can find many things, as well as many people, so we must control that our youth get to the right places.

Lack of parental and teacher control

Everything must be controlled, and parents are the main controllers of such access to Internetbut today it has been observed that many representatives give freedom without control to youth, allowing them to do unpleasant activities.

Parents should guide their children so that know how to distinguish between the good and the not so good.

Lack of education in values

This is one of the main characteristics of an aggressor, both in the cyber world and in the physical world. teenagers unconsciously comply with what is known in psychology as the butterfly effectwhere the least they receive can cause a great disaster in the future.

For this reason, experts in youth education say that young people should be included in conversations where all values ​​are mentioned, and that these can be practiced at home.

Who are the people most vulnerable to bullying on social networks?

Of 100% of a population affected by cyberbullying, 75% is from young people and adolescents. This is because it is young people who use social networks the most. According to surveys carried out by schools in Spain, children and adolescents they spend more time on their phone during break time than in other activities.

The networks have covered much of the life of human beingsthere are people who can spend up to 24 hours in them, and it is because we have allowed us to connect with the people we love but we are not close.

Even so, and recognizing that it is a very useful tool even for personal entrepreneurship, it must be controlled; because being the Internet the one that mostly instructs us, it also happens to be one of the potential influences on our behavior.

We see a clear example of the above in the game of The blue whale, promoted in 2016 by a young man who took advantage of the fact that many of his players felt an emptiness or lack of love to lead them to do very satanic activities, to the point of making them feel that to win the game it was necessary to commit suicide.

Such a game was one of the main world alarms, where discussions were held about what is influenced by Internet and how social media developers can prevent these acts.

Consequences of cyberbullying What damage can they cause to their victims?

This type of emotional stress, can bring with it many eventualities with unpleasant consequences, so if the young person suffers from some of those that we mention below, You should go immediately to a specialist, so that it can be treated in time:

• school absence: When the child or young person feels threatened, their main action is to run away from those people, as a way of escaping from the problem.
• Consumption of substances harmful to health: Such stress causes anxieties, and people who suffer from anxiety attacks tend to be driven to consume substances that harm their health.
• Depression: Because they feel so threatened and can’t find someone to drain all those feelings with, they tend to be depressed, and this must be treated immediately, because people who suffer from depression often commit suicide.
• Low self-esteem: When the situation of the young person or the child is so frequent, we see that he shows emotions that make you feel inferior to others. Mostly it can be detected by listening to the affected person speak.
• Change of actitud: A change of attitude is shown, because he does not want to involve anyone in his problems, being aggressive and lonely.
• They move away from their parents: When the youngster feels that his parents will not be able to understand him or that he may act in a way that he does not want, he prefers to scare them away with aggressive actions against them.
• Suicide: This is a consequence of everything mentioned, and at this stage there is no turning back.

How to protect yourself or your children from cyberbullying in social networks?

To be able to respond against cyberbullying, and protect the people we love We should guide them with the following tips:

Nope panic

Bullies always seek to frighten their victim, causing him to isolate himself from others out of fear and thus achieve his goal. As parents we must give our children enough confidence so that they do not act incorrectly in this situation. Here family communication plays a vital role..

Block all means of communication with the stalker

Today almost all social networks they allow us to block people who threaten us, so we must activate this function whenever we feel cornered by someone. Let us remember that the media are the main tools to communicate between people.

So we must instruct the boys so that they learn to take care of themselves of those people we do not know, and still want to establish communication with us and know our personal information.

Protect our contact data

we must protect our personal data, because the stalker will always look for our contacts, in order to contact us anonymously. Whenever we are in public places We must not dictate our home address, or telephone dataor social networks.

Let’s improve the privacy of our social network profiles

It is advisable increase the privacy of our social networksin this way no person who is outside our contact data will be able to communicate with us without our permission.

Let’s use strong passwords

We have to understand that one of the main goals of the aggressor is to seek to humiliate his victim, so there are more and more attempts to hack other users’ accounts in order to make publications quite humiliating of people.

Report inappropriate content

We can use our social networks as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter to report those people who publish offensive or inappropriate content. Such a claim implies the complete blocking of the person.

Let us report the harassment to the competent authorities

This should be the first thing we do when the situation gets out of hand. When contacting the authorities we must report everything that affects us and how he attacks us, they will legally protect us and apply the corresponding penalty to the harasser.

Can you report bullying on the Internet in Spain?

If we have any suspicion that someone is being a victim of cyberbullying, we must know which institutions to turn to at the moment.

It is really difficult to prevent the child or adolescent from accessing the Internet. The web and all its services in themselves are not badbut as we know it is a world and therefore we can find anything, also people who disrupt peace in torment and what is safe in insecure.

For this we cannot take cyberbullying as something simple and temporaryTherefore, measures must be taken in the event of such a risk. In Spain, State institutions have been adapting to these new threats, so we must go to them at the first sign of online harassment.

Such institutions are the Technological Investigation Brigade of the National Police and the Telematic Crimes Group of the Civil Guard.which offer different services to protect the victim.

What is the maximum penalty for the different types of digital harassment in Spain and the European Union?

Harassment is a crime considering that the aggressor creates an insistent and repeated persecution against the victim, altering their daily life, and this is regulated in article 172.ter of the Penal Code.

In the aforementioned article it has been established that the aggressor should be punished with a prison term of 3 months to two yearsand additional penalties may be applied in the case of special victims, such as the case of minors.

The penal code names three types of harassment:

• Generic Harassment with freedom
• Sexual harassment against sexual freedom
• Harassment in the workplace