It was inevitable with the massive growth of internet and related technologies that cyber bullying would occur. Bullies will hurt their victims through whatever means they find to be effective. With cyber bullying, they can give powerful psychological blows to their victims and the resulting effects can last long after the bully has taken their action. Secondary bullying can also occur. Others can easily join in on the bullying, either actively or passively.

When someone writes something nasty on a notice board at school. Many people can see it and react to it but we know that shortly afterwards the comments will be removed. The victim can simply remove the comments themselves. But on web pages, you can’t simply tear a piece of paper off the wall. You must state your case to the web site and it is up to the discretion of the web site owner whether or not to remove content. Our highly valued ‘freedom of speech’ on the internet, which I, personally, am very much in favour of, does have its drawbacks. And pictures and text messages send to groups on mobile phones are completely impossible for the victim to delete themselves.

So, if people can send messages about you, upload pictures, video clips and write on internet message boards about you and you are unable to prevent it or undo it what can you do? Firstly, it is important to realise that you can choose how to react to it. If someone tells you that they have seen some video clip of cyber bullying on you tube of you, for example, you could actually choose not to bother looking. You know, of course, that others will but then, you can’t help that. What benefit would you actually gain from looking yourself?

Actors know this strategy very well. After their first few performances in their careers they might rush out and buy every newspaper to read their reviews but after a while, they realise that the critics can be very brutal at times. They realise that sometimes they read their review and they feel bad afterwards as a result. So they simply stop reading their reviews. They judge their own performances by other means, such as how many people come to their shows or how good their friends say they are. If someone tells them they got a bad review they simply brush it off saying something like “Well, that’s critics for you. What do they know?”

If you do get hurt from cyber bullying, and if the bullies notice how hurt you are, then unfortunately they are more likely to use cyber bullying on you in future. If you can learn to truly not care what people publicise about you then you won’t get hurt. And if it doesn’t hurt you the bullies have no incentive to keep doing it. To achieve this you need to be able to develop some powerful mind skills. To truly not care and to be happy in yourself no matter what people do really is the secret to making all forms of bullying stop.

For more information and to book a training session call 0141 552 7045 or email mark@bullyingfullstop.co.uk

Mark McKenzie