Bullying in the Cyber Age

I recently watched an inspiring TedTalk video by a woman, Lizzie Velasquez, who was diagnosed with a rare syndrome that inhibits her body from gaining weight.    Lizzie was featured on a medical television show when she was eleven years old.  In the video, she discusses that years later she was scrolling through music videos on youtube when she saw a thumbnail in the related videos that looked strikingly like herself.  She clicked on the video and found a photo of herself on the screen for eight seconds with no sound. The title of the video was “World’s Ugliest Woman” and even labeled her as an eleven year old.  Lizzie describes realizing that the video had more than four million views and thousands of comments.  She describes painfully reading each and every comment and not finding a positive one.  Viewers encouraged Lizzie to kill herself, offered suggestions on how to kill herself, and made comments about how sighting her may cause blindness.  It absolutely breaks my heart to know that people can be so cruel to anyone, but especially a child with a disease.

I began to ponder what could lead someone to do something so despicable and heinous. The process of deindividuation described by Schneider, Gruman and Coutts (2012) came to mind.  Deindividuation occurs when people engage in behavior they might normally be inhibited from under the guise of anonymity.  A prime example of this phenomenon is the Ku Klux Klan.  Donned in white robes and pointed caps, people participated in truly disturbing crimes because they lost their sense of self.  It is a mob mentality.

I believe that cyber-bullying is often fueled by the effects of deindividuation.  Lizzie’s story is a great example of this occurrence.  Complete strangers, who knew nothing about her, took the time out of their day to beat down a child hiding behind the anonymity that the internet provides.

This can be a factor in other cases of bullying as well.  The internet allows public access to so much information and in the click of a button, information can be spread about a person that they never wanted anyone to know.  In cases such as these, the masses can attack an already vulnerable person and make the damage worse.  Reading up on bulling and watching Lizzie’s video (as well as Ryan’s video) have really put things into perspective for me.  Lizzie was lucky in that she chose to embrace her experience and use it to bring about positive change; however, not all are so lucky.  Words can really make a difference for better or for worse.  It is so important to make sure that what you put out isn’t going to change someone’s life in a detrimental way.

A link to the video is provided below:

References:

Schneider, F., Gruman, J., & Coutts, L.  (2012). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

 

2 comments

  1. You have provides such an excellent example of cyber-bullying, and to think that all those people involved in making the negative comments do not even know the victim!!! It is appalling that we live in an age where people (bullies) in this instance, are quick to turn on others and then pretend to apologize when they are caught or exposed. While we rightfully feel empathy for the victims of bullying (cyber or face to face), we also need to understand the causes without giving excuses for the perpetrators of the bullying. In fact you will find that some of these bullies are themselves victims of others in some form or fashion. As we watch and listen to the video, we can hear Lizzie state how angry she felt at one point. She could have chosen to retaliate, but did the right thing. Also to the extent that all the thousands of comments none were positive, it highlights how the diffusion of responsibility can translate to the cyberspace. I am sure those who could have said something positive were themselves fearful of retaliation or embarrassment, and that is part of what we have come to learn in applied social psychology. Excellent example. Thank you.

  2. This is a great post and an excellent example of deindividuation. It is appalling to me to think that people could so callously attack a child for something that they cannot control. Unfortunately it happens every day. You are right, the idea of being anonymous drive this kind of behavior and contributes to occurrences of online bullying. Perhaps positive comments could have led this conversation in a different direction. I wonder how many of those people felt bad about what they said and how many of them only said negative things about this woman simple because other people said negative things. This sort of mentality reminds me of the Solomon Asch experiment (1958) were a group of strangers, all but one were confederates, were in a room and asked to tell the experimenters which line was longest. The strangers would intentionally guess the line wrong and the experiment was designed to find out how social pressure and perception plays a role in conformity. Could this be an instance were good people felt pressure to conform to the perception of the majority? I really doubt that every person on there who commented negatively felt no apathy for this, then, child. The ability to remain anonymous probably made the decision easier and the innate desire to feel like part of a group more than likely further drew out the worst in the people who commented negatively.

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