HOW TO PREVENT CYBERBULLYING: 7 EFFECTIVE TIPS - ECONOMÍA - 2025

Preventing cyberbullying in children and adolescents is one of the most important actions that can be taken to avoid the negative consequences that it can produce on the mental health of children and adolescents.

Communication and Information Technologies (ICT) have experienced great advance in recent decades and, as a consequence, the society in which we live has also been modified.

ICTs have brought many benefits to human knowledge and to the dissemination of information. However, we cannot deny that the Internet is exempt from harm, among which we can find bullying through the network.

What is cyberbullying?

Since Olweus began to study violence between peers - better known as bullying - in 1970, the sensitivity of parents and educators towards violence that occurs among minors began to awaken.

The concept of bulying - or mistreatment between schoolchildren - encompasses not only physical violence, but also psychological violence, which occurs through insults, threats, yelling, etc.

On the other hand, “cyberbullying” is understood to be a specific type of harassment, which occurs among minors in the world of interactive technologies, whose actions can be defined as “behaviors of blackmail, humiliation or insults by some children to others”.

Although bullying and cyberbullying can be thought of as manifestations of the same type of violence, there are characteristics that make cyberbullying a particularly dangerous type of bullying.

The characteristics that make it a particular phenomenon are:

• Lack of face-to-face contact.
• Maintaining aggressive messages or actions for longer.
• Existence of a larger audience - and more difficult to control.

Therefore, we are talking about a type of harassment whose effects occur in different contexts –including the personal, interpersonal, intragroup and contextual levels- and which raises doubts about its approach and treatment, due to ignorance on the part of teachers, family members and students.

In addition, a few years ago, before the rise of Information and Communication Technologies, when a child was a victim of bullying, they could come home and feel “safe”, since their attackers could not invade that space.

However, since these bullying behaviors among schoolchildren are also manifested through the internet, victims feel unprotected even in their own home.

7 Strategies to prevent cyberbullying

To adequately address this problem and prevent cyberbullying, it is necessary to carry out a multidisciplinary intervention, in which work is carried out from the school - with aggressors, victims and passive bystanders - and from the family itself.

In addition to this work by professionals, there are some specific guidelines to prevent cyberbullying, such as the following:

Educate boys and girls in self-protection habits

Many teens trust personal data, intimate photos, or other information with people who may use it against them.

Therefore, it is important that children begin to differentiate between the information that they should and should not provide, that they keep their privacy safe and that they do not maintain an online relationship with people they do not know in person.

You have to make them see that the more personal information they provide to other people, the more vulnerable they are. Another aspect to take into account is to make them see the importance of acting on social networks as they would in reality.

In this way, they will be able to understand that, just as they do not talk to a stranger on the street, they should not do so on the internet either.

Stop harassment in the networks before the first manifestations

The continuation of cyberbullying can be explained by the passive attitude that the victim usually presents, since they do not act to avoid it or do not go to the right people.

In this way, bullies begin to perceive that no one is going to stop their manifestations of violence, so they experience a sense of control over the situation.

It is recommended in these cases that the victim keep the necessary evidence - photos, comments, private messages - and go to teachers or other authority figures to take action on the matter.

In no case do you respond to insults or provocative acts, since this leads to an aggravation of the problem - the aggressor will be satisfied for having provoked you and will not receive any punishment.

From home, it is important to show an open and understanding attitude, which facilitates communication between the different members of the family.

Do not allow harassment to occur in any of its manifestations

It is necessary to activate in individuals the willingness to act according to ethical content, in accordance with minimum universal values ​​and against harassment and violence in any of its manifestations.

Therefore, we must work to ensure that minors do not become passive spectators, whether they witness real violence or through the networks, since the aggressors will perceive that no one can stop them.

If you know someone who is in this situation, take action on the matter and inform the competent authority - teachers, family members, etc. - so that they act in the best possible way.

In this way, the victim will receive more attention from the people around him, in those cases in which he is afraid to tell his situation.

It is important that this problem begins to be conceived as an issue that involves all of us, whether we are victims, friends or relatives of victims or bystanders.

Teach minors to use secure passwords and access codes

As we have seen previously, a form of cyberbullying occurs when aggressors usurp the social media profiles of their victims.

Therefore, it is necessary for minors to understand the importance of being careful with their passwords.

Some tips that should be given are the following:

• Do not choose intuitive passwords, such as birthday, name and surname, etc. It is advisable to use letters and numbers that do not have a special meaning - or that only have meaning for the user herself.
• Do not reveal passwords to anyone. It is recommended that no one has access to the keys and passwords, even if they are close friends or trusted people.
• Be careful when logging into a public site. When using computers that other people have access to, you must be especially careful so that the password is not automatically saved on the computer, as well as to ensure that you have logged out correctly.

Otherwise, if these security measures are not taken, the minor is exposed to other people being able to access private information, publish on their behalf, etc.

Learn to act if a minor tells you that he is a victim of cyberbullying

The first thing you should do, when you are aware of this situation, is to comfort the child and show your support and understanding. Having felt unprotected for a certain time, the child will need emotional support and a feeling of security.

Then, it tries to extract more information about the specific case - duration, frequency, type of harassment on the networks - in order to assess its severity.

In the case of long-term harassment, with constant threats carried out by boys who have the victim's personal information - such as personal address, school he attends, compromised videos or photos - the most appropriate is to inform the police so that they offer protection and information.

Remember that, at all times, you must be attentive so that the victim of cyberbullying feels protected - and is really protected.

Make the victim stop frequenting the pages in which they are harassed

To prevent the harassment from persisting, it is sometimes advised that the minor stop visiting those pages or social networks in which they are victims of cyberbullying.

In the case of social networks, the victim can choose to create another profile - with a name that is more difficult to find - and delete the previous one, with the aim of adding only the people they really know and with whom they want to maintain the Contact.

With regard to mobile devices, it is sometimes necessary to change the number, especially if the insults, threats and other manifestations of harassment are carried out through calls or messages.

In this way, by restricting the access of the bullies - especially if they are anonymous - to the victim, cyberbullying is prevented from persisting.

Teach to value the positive side of using the internet

Despite the dangers that the use of the Internet entails, we must not forget its advantages and utilities –acquisition of new knowledge, possibility of sharing hobbies, among others-.

If you want your children or students to benefit from the positive part, teach them to use it responsibly, visiting pages of their interest and establishing reasonable hours - avoiding its use at night or for long periods of time.

It is also important that you control the pages they frequent and the activity they carry out - in order to detect whether your child is being a victim or aggressor of cyberbullying.

What is cyberbullying due to?

Among the causes that explain the emergence of this new type of harassment, we can find the following:

Development and mastery of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT's)

As we have already mentioned, one of the negative aspects of ICTs is that some people misuse them, using them with the aim of harming others.

Camouflaged harassment

Another factor that explains this type of abuse is that the aggressors maintain their anonymity, hide behind the computer screen and dehumanize the victim (they take their attacks as a joke, since they do not see the reaction it provokes in the other person).

Impotence of the victim

When the aggressor does not show his true identity, a feeling of helplessness and frustration is created in the victim, so he cannot defend himself or find the aggressors, on many occasions.

Lack of knowledge about the method of action in cyberbullying

Many teaching professionals and relatives of victims of this type of bullying do not know how to act to prevent or stop cyberbullying.

Legal defense of harassment in the network

Although it is true that certain content that appears on the internet can be removed, this procedure occurs, sometimes, too late.

Also, removing certain offensive content does not ensure that it will not be produced again (or there may be people who have saved that information or derogatory photos on their mobile devices).

How does it manifest?

There are different ways that bullies can carry out cyberbullying, such as those listed below:

• The aggressor can create a false profile to gain the confidence of the victim - or to maintain his anonymity -, after which the insults, threats, etc. can begin.
• Through private messages, they threaten or insult the victim. For example, messages in which the victim is forced to do something against their will under the threat that they will post compromised photos or that they will do physical harm.
• They can also publish accessible information to all the contacts of the victim and the aggressor (for example, write insults on their wall, or share photos or videos showing how the victim is beaten).
• Another form of violence occurs when the victim is registered - with a photo included - on web pages where the ugliest, fattest person, etc. is voted on.
• Invade the pages that the victim frequents and repeatedly harass him, so that the person who suffers the bullying has a feeling of complete overwhelm.
• Sending or spreading cruel rumors about someone who damages their reputation or damages it to their friends.
• Manipulate digital materials: photos, recorded conversations, emails, change, trick and modify them to ridicule and harm people.
• Stealing passwords to spoof your identity.

References

1. González, EM (2011). Parents who do not educate and educators who are not parents. Responsibility of parents and educators in the face of "cyberbullying" behaviors. Magazine of the Spanish Association of Lawyers Specialized in Civil Liability and Insurance, (38), 9-20.
2. Martínez, JMA (2010). School success and cyberbullying. Psychology Bulletin, (98), 73-85.
3. Martinez, JMA (2009). Cyberbullying: Differences between secondary school students. Psychology Bulletin, (96), 79-96.
4. Prados, M. Á. H., & Fernández, IMS (2007). Cyberbullying, a problem of bullying / (Cyberbullying, a bullying problem). Ibero-American Journal of Distance Education, 10 (1), 17.