A new study by researchers at Florida Atlantic University says that one out of twenty teenagers bully themselves online.
The survey of six thousand 12-17 year-olds also reveals that 13.2% “posted negative, anonymous messages about themselves” more than once — indeed, “many times.”
Boys often see the self-bullying “as a ‘joke’ or a way to get attention,” while girls did it “because they were depressed or hurting emotionally.”
Regular readers of The College Fix should not be surprised by the findings; three years ago a pair of sociologists wrote in The Journal of Comparative Sociology that “In the settings such as those that generate microaggression catalogs … where offenders are oppressors and victims are the oppressed [like college campuses], it also raises the moral status of the victims.”
Researchers suggest there may be a link between digital self harm and suicidal thoughts and/or attempts, according to the website. Young men were significantly more likely to have digitally self-harmed, with 7.1 percent reporting they had done it compared to 5.3 percent of young women. …
Age and race didn’t appear to affect if someone would self-cyberbully, but there were other factors.
According to dailymail.com, those teenagers who were surveyed in the study that identified as “non-heterosexual” were three times more likely to bully themselves online, while victims of cyberbullying were 12 times more likely to have also cyberbullied themselves.
Teenagers with a history of drug use, depression symptoms or self-harm behaviors offline were all far more likely to have digitally self-harmed, according to the website.
[Executive Director of the Children’s Advocacy Center of Johnson County Tammy] King said it’s important for parents to keep their children focused on positive things rather than negative.
“If you can get them to keep telling you about the good things in their life, the bad won’t seem quite so insurmountable,” she said.
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