Something almost every one of us must have experienced either at school, college, or the workplace is bullying. It is really harmful to a person’s physical and mental health and affects society as a whole. Earlier, bullying used to take place in person, but it has made its way to the internet. Most of us spend a lot of time daily on social media platforms, message boards, workplace apps, etc., which has led to an increase in cyberbullying around the world.
Over 40% of adults have been bullied online or harassed recently, according to research by PEW. It’s our duty to treat everyone with respect and save kids as well as adults from any type of bullying. Further, we’ll go through some ways to handle and avoid cyberbullying.
As we spend more and more time online, it increases the risk and exposure to cyberbullying. From schoolkids to college students to adults, no one is safe from it. Most social platforms and websites take steps to fight cyberbullying and promote online protection. Consider the following tips to avoid and fight cyberbullying.
By adjusting and changing your online privacy settings, you can reduce the risk of cyberbullying. Limit the visibility of your photos, videos, and other data to people you know in real life. When you keep tight privacy settings, unknown users and people you don’t know won’t be able to reach you.
Major social media platforms offer ways to handle cyberbullies and minimize engagement with them. You can keep your profile private and filter out several followers who don’t want to see your posts.
Most of the time, bullies don’t reach this point, but they can try to attack you by stealing your personal data and information. Bullies try to access your personal account through password hacking. Then, they use your videos and photos to threaten and bully you.
This increases the significance of IoT security and keeping strong, secure passwords. You can also use a password manager to keep the login information of different accounts in a secure place where no one other than you can access it.
It is never a safe or sensible thing to confront and respond to bullies on your own. Even responding to them in a respectful manner can fuel their desire to bully you even more. The best thing to do is to ignore their attempts and show no response to them.
Bullies and trolls usually stop when they don’t get any response, and their attempts to bully you go to waste. Their main aim is to evoke a response from you and hurt you emotionally. Try your best to not respond or retaliate to your online bullies.
If a bully is not stopping and continues to harass you, a quick and easy fix is to block his account or profile. If you are on social media, just visit the cyberbully’s profile, open the user settings, and proceed to block his profile.
This is the best thing to do if someone random online who doesn’t know you tries to bully you. When you block the cyberbully, he won’t be able to see your profile or send any messages or media to you.
An important thing you should do is record the cyberbullying attempts so that you have clear proof. If the need arises, these records will help you fight your harasser or bully. You can take screenshots of their threatening or negative messages, or even record their audio or video messages.
When you have all this documented, you can easily explain the situation to anyone who wants to help you. Also, perform regular data backups so that all these records stay safe with you.
Sometimes, the bullying may get out of control, and the cyberbullies may start threatening you. If the bully is in your school or office, it is possible that he tries to hurt you physically. This can lead to a dangerous situation, and it is recommended to seek the help of the police.
Remember that your family and law enforcement are always there to help you fight cyberbullying. Through your documents and records, it will be easy to prove and explain how you’ve been harassed and bullied online by the offenders.
Bullying in any form, whether it is in-person or online, is really bad. Everyone of us deserves to live a happy and stress-free life, regardless of how they look or what they do in life. Cyberbullies often insult victims and try to hurt them emotionally.
In the above blog, we read about some tips to avoid and handle bullying online safely. Remember, you are not alone, and your friends, family, and the law are always there to help you fight cyberbullies.
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