Internet bullying particularly difficult for adolescents

Leanne Jenkins---Recent reports about youth committing suicide after being bullied on the Internet has been found troubling by media experts, and a psychologist tells us there are specific reasons why cyberbullying is particular abusive to adolescents.  So how do teenagers process cyberbullying experiences?

Family Institute clinician Hollie Sobel, Ph.D. tells us,  “While social media can serve to augment peer relationships in adolescence, it can also provide a forum for negative exchanges that can be quite hurtful.  Teenagers can’t emotionally process these painful experiences in the same way they do their face-to-face equivalents. There aren’t the same opportunities to work it out online.”

These are some of the ways in which online bullying experiences are particularly hurtful and different from other types of bullying that take place in high school relationships, according to Dr. Sobel.  On the Internet the cyberbully’s victim can see how perpetrator is being affected nor determine how others are responding who might come to his or her aid.  Furthermore, there is a lack of authority involved for adults to step in and help and the faster pace and lack of direct contact allows more people to join in the bullying activities.  Then the bullying can become so pervasive that the victim can’t escape from the negative statements and taunting.

Dr. Sobel goes on to say,“Despite these differences, however, a victim’s level of assertion doesn’t vary whether the bullying occurs online or in person,” says Dr. Sobel. “The impact is just as resonant, only these incidents happen in the isolation of the Internet where social support, which is so important for coping, is absent.”

Dr. Sobel uses her expertise in an Adolescent Group Therapy Program at the Family Institute