By Charlotte Webster-
Social Media Bullying Can cause mental health problems, and must therefore be confronted.
Research released from anti-bullying charity ‘‘Ditch the Label’ reveal anxiety caused to youngsters because of cyberbullying on social media. Anxiety or depression can easily lead to mental health issues which can then affect other areas.
Awareness of mental health and its many symptoms can help defeat it. Mental health problems simply refer to the poor state of health of the mind.
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Ongoing anxiety can affect they way we deal with problems or challenges, the way we respond to undesirable circumstances, or unwanted comments.
Dwelling on negative comments too long can impact an individual’s attitude to their academics, relationships, and motivation in general. It compromises the ideal level of joy and enthusiasm necessary to pursue one’s dreams and potential.
Forty per cent of those surveyed in the research conducted by the anti-bullying campaign admitted feeling bad if nobody liked their selfies. 35% said their confidence was directly linked to the number of followers they had. This means that some young people who struggle to amass a following they consider big enough, receive a knock to their confidence.
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It is natural for young people who use instagram and other social media forums to compare the growth of their following to those of their friends. One thing youngsters must always understand is that social media following or positive responses to selfies are a weak basis for confidence.
CONFIDENCE
Confidence should be based on meaningful achievements or the plans for future achievements, not irrelevant considerations like social media following or the number of selfie ‘likes’. These are shallow things on which to base confidence, considering the long list of things that can make a person confident.
Young people need to be properly educated about these things from as early as primary school. The age of technology and social media has raised the importance of many factors to be incorporated in the education of children .
EDUCATION
Education about mental health and all its potential causes, including online bullying, will likely equip young people to resist it. Good education should go beyond academics in equipping children about the realities of life and people.
This type of good education will follow children to their teenage years and adult life. Instagram was highlighted as the main channel for mean comments, something technological experts should strive to address.
LOSERS
However, once young people recognise that only losers and empty people take part in online bullying, they will gain strength. They will realise that ignoring those mean comments or not allowing it to dictate their emotions is where real quality and development lies.
Once prolonged anger and resentment sets in that begins to affect one’s self esteem, the victim may be on their way to developing a mental health problem.
This doesn’t equate the conclusion that everybody who feels anger, resentment and low self esteem is automatically suffering from mental health. It simply means that it can lead to mental health if those negative feeling are not monitored and controlled.
The department of health has long announced that 1 in 4 people suffer from a degree of mental health. The condition is more common than most realise. Mental health problems are not necessarily permanent, depending on its scale and the steps taken by sufferers to combat it.
Resting well, seeking counselling if necessary, and consciously being determined to take a mature approach to things that can damage the state of one’s mental health, is a positive way forward.
Six percent of young social network users said they had been bullied on the Facebook, with five percent highlighting snapchat as the platform used in bullying them, and two percent pointing to twitter.
The findings are depressing, but young people need to focus on establishing a focus to achieve their ambitions, at the same time fighting off confidently any bullying they experience, reporting extreme cases when necessary.
The survey covered more than 10,000 young people between the ages of 12 and 20, with nearly 70% of youngsters admitting being abusive towards another person online, and 17% claiming to have been bullied online themselves. Alot also depends on why the bullying is occurring, in the sense of whether it is connected to the actions of those being bullied.
HISTORICAL
In cases involving a historical incident, correcting or addressing it in the most mature way possible is advisable. In the case of facebook bullying, there is the obvious solution of deleting and blocking unwanted individuals from one’s friends lists.
FEAR
One in three people said they lived in fear of cyber-bullying, with their physical appearance highlighted as the most likely area used for abuse. It is logical to assume that most people abused for their appearance may have done something wrong or annoying to spark the abuse. In such cases, victims must take responsibility for whatever results from their actions or wrongdoing, and simply defend themselves back or just ignore it.
47% of those interviewed admitted that they wouldn’t discuss bad things in their lives on social media,and many said they offered only an edited version of their lives. Chief executive of ”Ditch the Label, Liam Hackett said
“There is a trend towards people augmenting their personalities online and not showing the reality,” said Ditch the Label’s chief executive Liam Hackett.
“Cyber-bullying continues to be one of the biggest challenges facing young people.
“Not only is the internet redefining the climate of bullying, but also it is having clear impacts upon the identity, behaviours and personality of its young users.” The identity, behaviour and personality of all people is influenced by their various experiences in their life, both good and bad. Those behavioural traits and sense of identity is also influenced by how individuals handle and respond to the experiences in their lives.
ACID TEST
The acid test for young people and all people is how they handle some of the inescapable difficult times life throws at them, and how sincere they are in admitting their own role in the problem. Hackett is also calling for social media networks to put more resources into policing and defeating cyber bullying
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