Social Media |

It is very shocking indeed to read the article recently published by BBC, written by Dennis Winterman (4/12/2013). Although it may sounds familiar especially on the issue of cyber-bullying, this one particular reveals darker side of it that actually something I had felt long, long time ago when I was very into online activities. Actually, in my defence, you may never aware that your online activities especially on the part of socializing online can lead to such effects.

According to the article, cyber self-hurting or also known as digital self-hurting is a phenomenon that we actually came across when we spend time online. This is not in teenagers only but adults also experienced it unconsciously. Cyber self-hurting is very closely to our action to post personal postings that purposely wanting to get negative feedback in which that action actually to distract own emotional disturbance or pain. It is quite shocking to know that postings such as “am I attractive?” “am I pretty?” “am I fun?” are actually reinforce what that person feels (mainly negative) about themselves.

Digital self-hurting also has other name known as self-trolling which I first came to know to this word through a television sitcom –Two and a half-men– when it main cast, Charlie Sheen used the word troll or trolling that had been used widely in World of Warcraft community to mean abused joke, threat or abused posts made for other people. This actually happening in real word when the article reported Ellie (not real-name, 15) anonymously self-trolling herself. How she did this?… According to the article, she created multiple accounts (social networking accounts) but used different names and identity to consistently post abusive postings to herself and hoping that her friends (network friends) to worry about her and unconsciously come to protect her! Another serious case was the death of Hannah Smith (14) because she took her own life after being bullied on social networking (refer to the article) was actually being investigated over the allegations of “that Hannah had sent some of the messages to herself”.

Although, research shows that online messages or postings can be easily misunderstood, misinterpret or misleading because of the absence of crucial face cues or verbal cues and intonation (I know this true because it was one of my research findings!) the darker side of socializing online has yet to surface itself. So for me, again this is another part of the online story that requires our continuous help and support.