We all learn about ourselves and how to get through life in different ways.
Talking to a family member, a friend or a health professional can help. Sometimes it can also be useful to find out for ourselves by reading a book.
Category: Bullying
Cyberbullying
In the last few years, cyberbullying has become an umbrella term for lots of negative behaviour online.
What is cyberbullying?
Essentially cyberbullying is bullying online, and it can take many different forms. Sometimes it is easily recognisable and others not so much.
It can be 24/7 with seemingly nowhere to get away from it. One of the drawbacks of the connectivity in our pockets is we’re always accessible.
Generally, cyberbullying doesn’t happen in isolation. It tends to be a part of traditional bullying. The bully is often someone known to the person on the receiving end of it. This is even if the activity seems to be done anonymously.
Cyberbullying can take obvious forms such as name calling, putting someone down or abusive comments on posts, images or videos. Then there are less obvious forms, only really felt and understood by the person on the receiving end of it.
Cybersafety and young people
There are countless media stories about the perils of young people being online. Ironically, a lot of these stories are good ‘clickbait’ and give a false sense of what they are actually doing online.
Young people are online earlier these days communicating through many different devices. Even if you don’t live in a ‘connected’ household, they could be accessing the internet with friends or elsewhere.
What is bullying?
Unfortunately, being bullied is a relatively common experience. ‘Bullying’ means repeated actions with the intention of causing distress.
In a recent survey of over 19,000 young people in Ireland, 39% reported they had been bullied at some point. However, despite being something many of us go through, people often try to hide that they’re being bullied. This can make it even more isolating and distressing. Bullying is never acceptable.
In this article you will find:
- How bullying can affect you
- Getting support for dealing with it
- Why do people bully
- What you can do if you’re being bullied
What bullying is
Bullying can be obvious, like physical violence, verbal abuse, or humiliation. But there are also less visible versions of it, such as emotional bullying or exclusion.
Bullying could be any combination of these:
- Verbal put downs
- Embarrassing you
- Exclusion
- Damaging or stealing belongings
- Racial abuse.
Bullying can be a very isolating experience and has a negative impact on our self-esteem.