The average teenager spends seven hours online every day for entertainment. While spending more than time online is a reality of modernistic life, it changes the way adolescents interact with one another, often in negative ways.

For example, too much time on social media tin increase your child's risk of existence bullied online and becoming a cyberbully, co-ordinate to a study from the University of Georgia. Teens were most likely to be a perpetrator of online bullying if they:

  • Spent a lot of time on social media, fifty-fifty when faced with negative consequences like lack of sleep, poor grades, or doing things online they later regret
  • Spent many hours online each day, beyond social media
  • Identify as male

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What Does Cyberbullying Look Like?

Cyberbullying is the use of electronic communication to harass, intimidate, dispense, or threaten someone. Examples include:

  • Proper noun calling
  • Spreading rumors
  • Spreading individual information without consent
  • Personal attacks
  • Harassment or humiliation
  • Bigotry
  • Misrepresenting oneself
  • Social exclusion
  • Cyberstalking (using electronics to stalk or harass someone)

A 2018 Pew Enquiry Heart survey found that 59% of teens take personally experienced abusive online beliefs. Proper noun calling was the almost common cyberbullying behavior, followed by spreading fake rumors, constant check-ins by someone other than a parent, and physical threats. About one-quarter of teens say they've received explicit images they didn't asking.

Although teenage boys and girls are as likely to feel cyberbullying, certain types of behaviors, such as rumor spreading and receiving unrequested explicit images, are more common for girls. Girls are too more than probable to experience several different forms of cyberbullying. And generally speaking, teens who spend much of their free time online are more likely to face online harassment than less frequent users.

Why Does Cyberbullying Happen?

Teens corking one another for a diverseness of reasons. Some get bullied at dwelling house or don't get the healthy attending they demand from parents, caregivers, teachers, coaches, or siblings. Others have low self-esteem and bully to gain a sense of power or control. Some believe it will help them be accepted by a certain oversupply or go along others from bullying them.

Cyberbullying is condign more common every bit teens spend more time in digital and online spaces. A few possible reasons include:

  • Anonymity. Social norms are different online than in person. It'south easier to exist cruel or aggressive on social media because there is no face-to-face confrontation. Users tin can remain bearding and avoid retaliation.
  • Avoidance of Natural Consequences. When a teen bullies someone in person, there are natural consequences to those actions. They can see the damage they cause and take an opportunity to learn from their behavior. Bullying has fewer natural consequences when it occurs online.
  • Underdeveloped Executive Role. With the controlling areas of their brains still forming, teenagers sometimes make poor choices. The net creates an surroundings where it's easy to post and difficult, if not impossible, to undo their words and actions.

How Parents Can Help

Studies show parents can influence their teen's online behavior. Hither are a few ways yous tin help prevent cyberbullying:

  • Talk early and ofttimes about appropriate online beliefs. Requite specific examples so they tin can make good decisions. Explain the consequences of online bullying, what to do if it happens to them, or what to practice if they feel like they're losing control over their engineering employ.
  • Set rules limiting fourth dimension online and enforce them consistently. Go them more than involved in offline activities.
  • Encourage your child to speak up if they witness cyberbullying.
  • If your child bullies others online or is the victim of cyberbullying, consider talking with a mental wellness advisor or a clinician at a teen handling program. These professionals can help them cutting downward on social media use, notice healthy ways to cope with feelings, build their cocky-conviction, and address underlying issues that may be at the root of their behavior.

Adolescence is a time when immature people are trying to figure out who they are and who they want to be – in existent life, equally well as online. Helping them navigate their online globe will help ensure they reap the benefits of engineering while minimizing dangers like cyberbullying.