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Email, texting and social media have made it easier for adults to be mean; don’t respond, experts say
People were mean to each other before the Internet. But email, texting and social media have made it a lot easier.
Forty percent of adult Internet users say they’ve been harassed online, and almost three quarters say they’ve seen someone else being harassed, according to a 2014 Pew Research Center survey. Young adults bear the brunt: 65% of Internet users between the ages of 18 and 29 say they have been the target of at least one type of harassment online.
By the time children are 10 years old, many have received instruction on how to deal with cyberbullying. Unfortunately, many adults may also need a class in how to behave better online, too.
Public figures, such as celebrities, politicians and journalists, are frequently targeted by strangers. And cyberbullies sometimes work in unison, egging each other on and acting like an angry mob.
But cyberbullying can happen to anyone—and it sometimes comes from someone the victim knows. In researching this column, I talked to a teacher who was cyberbullied by a student, a woman cyberbullied by neighbors upset about her dog, and a man who’d received more than 500 nasty texts in 48 hours from his ex-girlfriend. One couple I know was harassed by a group of people in their Chicago suburb—who created a Facebook page to vent—when the husband declined to renew the lease of a popular wine store that had rented space in a building he owned in town.
Psychologists know that the lack of face-to-face communication decreases empathy. Research studies have long shown that people are more willing to cause pain to someone else when they can’t see that person’s expression or reaction. It is as if it is harder to understand that the consequences are real if you can’t see them.
Technology also allows people to harass someone they don’t know. And it can provide anonymity—or at least its illusion—so people feel less compelled to behave. Even on websites that require profiles, such as Facebook or Twitter, some people have made up fake ones to bully.
There is a difference between Internet trolls—people who strive to be spiteful, aggressive, offensive—and all-out cyberbullies. Just like playground bullies, cyberbullies intentionally target one person who cannot defend himself, and they carry out their online abuse repeatedly, over time. Sometimes, they encourage others to join in and the bullying becomes a pile-on.
A study published in August 2015 in the journal “Computers in Human Behavior” showed that cyberbullies typically have three personality traits that often occur together and that psychologists call the Dark Triad: Machiavellianism, which is a tendency to manipulate other people for your own good; narcissism, an obsession with self and feeling that you are better than other people; and psychopathy, an attribute that includes a lack of empathy and a willingness to take risks.
Law enforcement agencies, clinical psychologists and many companies pay close attention to Dark Triad traits, because people who have them are more likely to commit crimes, cause social trouble and create discontent in an organization, especially when they are leaders.
In the study, the researchers gave a survey to 227 men and women, asking them to rate themselves on 12 statements designed to measure Dark Triad traits, such as “I tend to lack remorse” and “I tend to want others to admire me.” The questionnaire also asked about the participants’ experience cyberbullying, such as: “Have you written nasty things on someone else’s Facebook page?” The study found that the people who had participated in cyberbullying were much more likely to have Dark Triad traits and that psychopathy was the biggest predictor of who would be a cyberbully. (Previous research had shown this to be true of people who post angry comments on social media sites.)
“These people lack impulse control,” says Alan Goodboy, an associate professor of communication studies at West Virginia University and lead researcher on the study. “They lack empathy. They get bored. And they go online to provoke people because they enjoy it.”
How should you respond to a cyberbully?
With complete silence, the experts agree. “Unfriend, unfollow, unlink,” says Patricia Wallace, adjunct professor at the University of Maryland University College Graduate School and author of “Psychology of the Internet.” Block the bully from your phone and your social media accounts. Don't respond. It makes you seem vulnerable and a more interesting target.
If you find it hard to remain silent, try this: Write everything you want to say down in a notebook or a Word document. Then file it away. “The writing will dissipate your anger,” says Pamela Rutledge, director of the Media Psychology Research Center, in Newport, Calif. “And you can recognize that the bully has a problem and you don’t.”
Dr. Rutledge also recommends shifting your focus by writing a friend or loved one a nice note. “Your entire body chemistry will change,” she says.
To protect yourself, you should make an archive of the evidence, with dates, times, descriptions and screenshots of messages or emails, says Tyler Cohen Wood, cybersecurity expert for Inspired eLearning, a San Antonio company that provides online digital awareness, compliance and harassment training.
If the abuse occurs on a social media site, you should report it to the site’s administrators—and ask for a supervisor if you aren't being taken seriously. You can also reach out to organizations that help people who are being attacked online: Crashoverridenetwork.com, iHollaback.org.
Many states have laws against cyberbullying, so if you receive a direct and specific threat of violence or the bully uses hate language, you can report the attack to local law enforcement.
Finally, if you see cyberbullying happening to someone else, post something positive to the person being attacked. It is a powerful show of support to the victim and of rebuke to the bully, says Michelle Ferrier, an associate dean for innovation at the Scripps College of Communication at Ohio University and founder of TrollBusters, an organization that combats cyberbullying.
Write to Elizabeth Bernstein at Elizabeth.Bernstein@wsj.com or follow her on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram at EBernsteinWSJ.
