How to prevent CYBERBULLYING

The high prevalence of cyberbullying estimates that approximately 40-55% of children students have been involved in bullying, either as victims, aggressors or observers. Harassment produces serious consequences on an emotional and cognitive level, reaching suicide in the most serious cases. Faced with this, it is extremely important to establish an intervention to detect harassment, but it is even more important to be able to carry out prevention to prevent these behaviors from occurring. However, it is currently an educational challenge to prevent violent behaviors in new technologies, due to their wide scope.

In this Psychology-Online article, it will be explained how to prevent cyberbullying, specifically how to prevent cyberbullying in social networks, based on educational conditions that have the objective of favoring prevention tasks against cyberbullying.

Index

1. What is cyberbullying prevention
2. Cyberbullying prevention strategies
3. Cyberbullying on social media
4. How to prevent cyberbullying on social media

The expansion of new technologies has transformed society, especially from infants to young adults. However, the rise of these technologies has facilitated the increase in violent behavior among equals, giving way to cyberbullying. Cyberbullying is a type of perhaps that due to its characteristics produces serious consequences in minors. It's important to know what is cyberbullying, its causes and consequences. In order to combat cyberbullying, it is essential to prevent it.

Obviously, in a cyberbullying prevention program, the educational community must include a space for training in the best practices and habits of use of new technologies, so that a good management of its use. However, true cyberbullying prevention has at its core awareness and feelings presented before this set of moral decisions that appear in these harassments. So that, moral education must be the fundamental pillar prevention of cyberbullying, beyond the disciplinary models that must be followed or the legal consequences that this harassment may entail. Since if the preventive objective is to educate, for this it is relevant to work with the internalization and management of the set of moral guidelines involved in these situations.

Faced with this, the solution to bad practices is not based on resorting to drastic measures, such as the prohibition of the use of technologies, since the proper use of these involves many Benefits. The solution is through teach how to make good use of technologies from moral education and internalization of what these behaviors entail. In summary, it should be clarified that education in moral values ​​against abuse will be what stops the abuse from its roots, whether direct or virtual.

There are different strategies to prevent cyberbullying. The main objectives of cyberbullying prevention strategies are:

• Help children, adolescents or young people in resolution of moral dilemmas, the work of emotional self-regulation and their behaviors and managing your feelings and emotions.
• Make students the protagonists of prevention and technology management.
• Group coexistence work, of equality and the richness of their differences.
• Promote reflection on cyberbullying: become aware of the scope it has and the effects on the emotional and cognitive plane that it generates.
• Involve the educational center and family members in the detection of violent or cyberbullying behaviors for early detection. Providing family members with information so that they can help their children to make good use of the networks.
• Acquire habits for responsible use, healthy and safe from new technologies.

The truly alarming aspect of social media is the limited control that young people have over their personal information, which can be driven by the ignorance of the risks or excessive confidence. Among young people, sharing passwords, talking with strangers, having the social network open without a privacy filter with very personal information exposed, is very common. These behaviors of users of social networks can be used to generate cyberbullying situations. So that, the lack of control of the information that is shared It can place the user of the social network in a situation of helplessness due to the loss of privacy. Against this, we will show a set of guidelines that must be worked on to reduce harassment and prevent cyberbullying on social networks.

Next, we list the strategies to prevent cyberbullying on social media.

• Promote the care of personal privacy. Establish healthy habits in the face of self-protection in virtual spaces: work on the internalization of self-protection and self-regulation guidelines. For this, it is advisable to change the passwords of social networks to increase their protection, review the contact list of social networks and try to eliminate those who are not from confidence. Establish a private profile in the privacy options, take into account the information that is shared and who has access to it. Finally, it is important to avoid sharing information that reveals important details about the person.
• Establish healthy habits in front of protecting the privacy of others: asking permission to tag photos in which other people appear and using the tags in a positive way, not with the aim of damaging, insulting, violating or humiliating the other.
• Consider the risks to avoid.
• Promote values in virtual content such as respect for differences, honesty, sympathy, and so on. Is essential work empathy in adolescents, not only to prevent cyberbullying on social networks, but to improve interpersonal relationships and avoid harassment.

This set of actions should be exposed from school and family education, so that young people learn to exercise a correct functioning of social networks.

In addition, social platforms such as Facebook, Instagram or Twitter offer a “security center” space where the user can report harassment that is taking place in the social network, whether its own or someone else's, with the aim that the application itself can intervene and stop the situation of harassment. For example, Instagram explains what must be done to be able to report an account of the platform that is being used for harassment purposes, or if the objectives of certain comments on a photo are to to offend. Also offering an informative space on behaviors that should put us in alarm on social networks. Facebook, for example, shows how to act if you are a victim, witness a bullying or even if you were a bully and regret it. On the other hand, it offers resources for families and educators.

This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

If you want to read more articles similar to How to prevent cyberbullying, we recommend that you enter our category of Socialization problems.

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• Aviles, J. (2013). Psychosocial analysis of cyberbullying: keys for a moral education. Papers of the Psychologist, 34, 65-73.
• Castro, A. (2013). Training for Internet cyber-coexistence and cyberbullying prevention. Integra Educativa, VI, 22.
• Del Río, J., Sábada, C & Bringué, X. (2010). Minors and social networks?: from friendship to cyberbullying. Youth Studies, 88, 15.