Student Reporter: Hritam Mukherjee
University: a student of Bachelor in Mass Communication and Videography in St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata
There is no denying that we live in a world which is completely immersed in an entity called the internet. From buying clothes, to visiting places, all of our personal choices are heavily influenced by social media trends. As a result, our lives have undergone massive transformations ever since social media became a part and parcel of our everyday life. However, along with the advantages of social media, comes several disadvantages too. And one of the most alarming disadvantage is Identity animosity and associated cyberbullying.
With the recent boom of Indian digital space and the advent of cheap internet, the entire world is now easily accessible on one’s fingertips, even to those who do not know how to use the internet ethically. Internet Illiteracy is one of the poignant causes that spearhead continued cyberbullying.
Cyberbullying is defined as a way of bullying or harassment via electronic means. It is an umbrella phenomenon that comprises of one-time or continuous chain of incidents that ranges in various degrees of seriousness and gravity. Although cyberbullying has always been a dynamic occurrence changing its facade from time to time, it has heavily impacted the victims and has led to the development of serious mental and emotional issues.
Recently, an idea of anonymous messaging has taken the internet by storm. Encashing on the sudden yet huge popularity, different apps and web portals were created: Sarahah, Stulish, Travelangkiwi etc. The cautiousness, with which the perpetrators operated previously, has now vanished. They have realised that tracking them via anonymous messages would not be easily possible. As a result, hate comments have started pouring into inboxes of users in large numbers, often going above the line. With no strings of ethics and morality attached to them anymore, people empty all their angst that borders on illicit use of language and misconduct.
Peer pressure and opinions of cliques in high school and college adds fuel to this phenomenon, flaming it to new heights of toxicity and focusing on typecasting one’s skin tone, physiognomy and sexuality through these comments.
“When I was in 8th standard, I was shamed about the way I look in a Whatsapp class group. I still continue to receive hate comments on my body on anonymous platforms. As a result I always had body image issues and somewhere I became conscious that I am not pretty enough.”
“Across various anonymous social media websites, I have continually faced questions about my body; may that be my skin colour or about my features. As a teenage girl in her formative years, it was really difficult to overcome those.”
“My schoolmates had always typecast my behaviour as one of a non-normal person. The continuous verbal abuse meted out through the anonymous internet often ridiculed my sexuality. This convinced me to hate myself and I developed mental health issues. Recently I was diagnosed with depression and bipolar disorder.”
It should come as no surprise that some of these messages may have been sent by some of your closest mates. We grow up in a very competitive world where the pursuit of success enables people to forget morals and put humanity at stake. In the toxic environment in which we grow up – it may be created due to family, or friends, or close relatives, but receiving hatred from an absolute stranger is what crosses the line of tolerance.
“Very recently, one of my closest friends tried to deliberately humiliate me and my political inclination. He verbally mutilated me and provoked everyone to go against me. Thanks to his virtue signalling, thousands of threatening messages flooded my anonymous inbox from people whom I have never known. I was shattered and it almost took me a month to recover from the shivering and the false sense of insecurity that it had given me.”
“I don’t have good memories of school. Whenever I try to express what I faced in school on social media, some people start shaming me for criticising my alma mater. However, neither did they study in my school nor do I know them. Yet they threaten me through anonymous platforms so that I delete my post out of fear.”
These days, often one casually remarks that teenagers seek validation, often in a tone replete with mockery and sarcasm. Ironically, it’s a real, hard-hitting fact. Instead of recognising them for the little efforts they put up each day against the problems they face, the internet leaves no stone unturned to shame them and make them think even lower of themselves.
Many of us slip into depression at an early age in our lives due to academic crisis, toxic relationships, identity crisis, inferiority complex and insecurity or a combination of any of them. Cyberbullying, as a deadly weed adds on to the burden. Because, man being a social animal, requires approval to survive and encouragement to function and exist. Unfortunately, in a situation like this, when one turns to the internet, one finds it to be a dark abyss filled with toxic hate and infinite abhor.
Cyberbullying takes a toll on the mental health, causing it to deteriorate over time. It is a slow killer and it is high time that we, the responsible netizens, realise that any form or degree of cyberbullying is wrong and should be punished. Cyberbullying is that vice of our society which lurks behind the lit desktop screens yet has the potential to cause thousand suicides and attempts at self-harm.
Internet was created to make human race better. But in our pursuit of success, let us not forget our humanity, and the responsibility we have for our fellow humans which sets us apart from the animals in the wild, who too at times, take care of their pack or herd. It is incumbent on all of us that we, in our collective efforts, eradicate cyber bullying and make Internet a healthy space for those who try to live and grow with its help.
English