Think back for a moment, back to just a few months ago. On the 1st of December of 2013, what were you doing? Perhaps you were looking forward to the holidays, or getting started on organising Christmas gifts for family and friends. On that day, there was something very different happening to Dakota Moore, a 21 year old Ontarian university student, and the 200 people who chose to witness the event unfold online. Goaded and cheered on by internet users from the website 4chan, Moore attempted to commit suicide ‘live, ‘ via a webcam chat room. Nobody thought to stop him. In fact, they encouraged him and made fun of him, made memes about him, and joked about him. The video taken from the incident ran for a full 40 minutes, and nobody in that time thought to alert authorities as Dakota swallowed pills, hid himself in his dorm room, and set fire to his surroundings.
Moore’s friends hit back at the perpetrators, saying,
‘Anyone making a joke out of this is absolutely disgusting. Pretending that this wasn’t real, sharing, making memes…this is someone’s […] life. You all should be ashamed of yourselves.
Dakota Moore: Urged on by internet users to commit sucide.
‘You’re living in an altered reality where something like attempted suicide has become ‘fun’. You people need help.’
Moore’s friends are right. The tendency to view what happens on the internet as being outside of the ‘real world’ can have consequences that extend beyond mere jokes about not venturing outside because you’re socially awkward. Forgetting that the person on the other side of the screen is a real person, with thoughts, feelings, and dreams –having that dissociation from that person via the expanse of the internet– shows that the mental health of both the perpetrator, and the victim, are at harm. Psychologists note the phenomenon of ‘group death instincts.’ It has been observed that crowds that gather where suicidal individuals are standing on tall buildings often incite them to jump. Internet communications studied by psychologists have been shown to mirror this, and mental health specialists worry that the internet is making it easier for self-destructive individuals to incite others to kill themselves. The internet has huge potential for a powerful, destructive, collective force to develop, that encourages an ambivalent view of increases in suicide[1]. The only reason why Moore was saved was because someone who lived in his building noticed it was on fire, and called emergency services.
Let’s have a closer look at the perpetrator, the cyberbully. Let’s look deeper into their psyche. Research shows that while cyberbullies demonstrate high levels of moral competence, they severely lack moral compassion[2]. In other words, the cyberbullies understand what moral behaviour requires, but they are unable to translate that into feeling for the other person, the victim –frighteningly, the cyberbully can easily switch their mind to ‘disengage-from-all-feelings’ mode, and evade any feeling of guilt. What they understand about the moral implications of their actions has little bearing on their actual actions[3]. The internet, then, appears to also provide another layer of dissociation and disengagement from their actions – it’s that ability to avoid what’s ‘real.’
Tyler Clementi: Committed suicide due to being embarrassed online by peers.
Cyberbullying has been found to triple the suicide risk among teenagers[4]. The news is filled worldwide with young people driven as far as suicide due to cyberbullying. The BBC reports about a 14 year old Italian girl who committed suicide this February due to users on the website Ask.fm writing her hostile messages telling her to commit suicide, when she had posted on the website seeking relationship advice[5]. Similarly, a 15 year old American girl committed suicide in January due to cyberbullying attacks from school peers. The high-profile cases of Amanda Todd and Tyler Clementi, both driven to suicide through avenues of social media, show the effects of the cyberbullies’ inability to see that even if the harassment is over the internet, it is still very real, and very harmful.
Tyler Clementi Committed suicide by jumping off bridge at 18 years of age when he was a university student in New Jersey, USA. Fellow students used a webcam to secretly stream personal footage of Clementi live online, and used Twitter to send inappropriate messages to urge others to watch.
Amanda Todd High school student who was blackmailed, bullied, and physically assaulted. Abusive messages and media footage of abuse were continuously circulated online by her highschool peers. Todd was found hanged in her home at 15 years old.
A further issue is the anonymity with which cyberbullies can operate. Charlotte Dawson, an Australian former model and television personality, recently committed suicide due to the torrent of vicious attacks against her via social media by anonymous cyberbullies[6].
Charlotte Dawson, former model and television personality, committed suicide after vicious attacks from online trolls via Twitter.
Kate Carnell, the CEO of Beyond Blue points out that “Because people can bully anonymously, it makes it more likely and more dangerous.” There’s even the concept of the ‘keyboard warrior,’ someone who isn’t afraid to speak out harshly against others because they can hide behind the anonymity of the keyboard – it’s something they wouldn’t do in ‘real life,’ because they don’t want to hurt the feelings of others, or they can’t bear the confrontation that would befall them if they accosted someone in the same manner face-to-face.
The internet has changed the way we communicate, and therefore the speed and intensity at which we can pepper others with what we want to say. We can contact people virtually 24-7, send messages daily, hourly, even by the minute. Before the proliferation of social media, young people might be bullied at school, but then could often escape from it physically, by going home[7]. Cyberbullying is seen by workers in mental health as being more problematic than traditional bullying, because it can happen at anytime from anywhere.[8] As victim Amanda Todd’s mother wonders,
‘I shake my head and I think, ‘Are kids really that nasty, do they really not think, what if it was them?’[9]
Please, learn to realise that the person on the other side of your computer screen is just as real a person as you are. Remember to exercise your empathy, and ask yourself, would I want to be treated in this way? No longer can we think of the internet as an ‘unreal’ place, as opposed to the ‘real’ outside world. Cyberbullying is still bullying, whatever the method to deliver it may be.
[1] Baume P, Cantor C, Rolfe A. Cybersuicide: the role of interactive suicide notes on the Internet.. Crisis: The Journal of Crisis Intervention and Suicide Prevention. 1997; 18 (2): 73.
[2] Gini G, Pozzoli T, Hauser M. Bullies have enhanced moral competence to judge relative to victims, but lack moral compassion. Personality and Individual Differences. 2011; 50 (5): 603–608.
[3] As above
[4] Boschert S. Cyberbullying triples suicide risk in teenagers.. Pediatric News. 2014; 47 (6):15.
[6] http://jezebel.com/5939225/next-top-model-judge-hospitalized-after-twitter-bullying-leads-to-suicide-attempt
[9] Shaw, Gillian (October 20, 2012). “‘She shared everything with me’: Amanda Todd’s mother talks about her life with her daughter”. vancouversun.com. Retrieved October 21, 2012.
Generation Wired 