Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works. Hi brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren Fogelbaum. Here. Today's episode deals with the subject of
Speaker 1: self harm. Go on and skip it if you'd prefer,
Speaker 1: and take care of yourself. Okay. When fourteen year old
Speaker 1: Hannah Smith from Leicestershire, England tragically took her life in
Speaker 1: her family sided months of relentless cyber bullying via the
Speaker 1: web app ask dot fm. But when investigators dug deeper,
Speaker 1: they discovered something even more devastating. Of the abusive messages
Speaker 1: were sent by Hannah herself. It's called self cyber bullying
Speaker 1: or digital self harm, the act of setting up fake
Speaker 1: social media accounts to post hurtful messages about yourself. And
Speaker 1: while it sounds bizarre, why would anyone, especially as struggling adolescent,
Speaker 1: want to bully themselves online? It's much more common than
Speaker 1: previously thought. According to a national survey of twelve to
Speaker 1: seventeen year olds, seven point one percent of boys and
Speaker 1: five point three percent of girls said that they had
Speaker 1: anonymously posted mean messages about themselves. Samir Hindu is co
Speaker 1: director of the Cyber Bullying Research Center and a professor
Speaker 1: of criminology and criminal justice at Florida Atlantic University. He
Speaker 1: conducted the digital self harm study with Cyberbullying Research Center
Speaker 1: co director Justin Patchen, a professor of criminal justice at
Speaker 1: the University of Wisconsin. All Claire Kinduja and Patchen chose
Speaker 1: the term digital self harm as opposed to self cyber
Speaker 1: bullying or self trolling to draw attention to possible connections
Speaker 1: between this destructive online behavior and traditional self harming acts
Speaker 1: like cutting, burning, or hitting oneself. According to the latest figures,
Speaker 1: between thirteen and eighteen percent of adolescents worldwide report to
Speaker 1: committing at least one self harming act, and more alarmingly,
Speaker 1: among young adults with the history of self harming behaviors,
Speaker 1: sent attempts suicide at least once, and fifty percent make
Speaker 1: multiple suicide attempts. The researchers wanted to see whether there
Speaker 1: might be a link between online self harm and these
Speaker 1: negative behaviors. Their study represents the first comprehensive look at
Speaker 1: digital self harm among adolescents, and their results were published
Speaker 1: in the Journal of Adolescents Health. On the surface, digital
Speaker 1: self harm looks like other instances of cyber bullying. The
Speaker 1: victim receives threatening or abuse of posts on social media
Speaker 1: or via text messages, saying unfortunately common internet insults along
Speaker 1: the lines of your ugly and nobody likes you, or
Speaker 1: you should just kill yourself. But the truth is that
Speaker 1: the victim is also the perpetrator, directing the abuse at
Speaker 1: themselves through behavior that's at once a call for help
Speaker 1: and a cry for attention. As part of Hinduja and
Speaker 1: patch and study, which analyzed email responses from a nationally
Speaker 1: representative sample of five thousand, five nine adolescents, the researchers
Speaker 1: asked young teens to share reasons why they had sent
Speaker 1: themselves bullying messages. Some of the kids, mostly boys, so
Speaker 1: that they were just bored and thought it was funny.
Speaker 1: But more than half of those who admitted to cyber
Speaker 1: bullying themselves indicated that other people were the real audience
Speaker 1: or expressed some message of self hate. A fourteen year
Speaker 1: old boyfriend Wisconsin wrote that he wanted other people's pity
Speaker 1: and wanted to be validated that someone did actually care
Speaker 1: about me. Another boy indicated that posting abuse of messages
Speaker 1: about himself might rally a supporting online community around him. Quote,
Speaker 1: everyone is going to have moments in their lives hating
Speaker 1: themselves sometimes it helps posting about it online. The Internet
Speaker 1: might be a terrible place, but there are tons of
Speaker 1: people around the world who are willing to help you,
Speaker 1: he wrote. In general, Hinduja says boys and the survey
Speaker 1: were more likely to have participated in digital self harm
Speaker 1: as a joke, while girls were more likely to do
Speaker 1: it as an expression of what the researchers called deep
Speaker 1: seated emotional turmoil. Teens who identified as lgbt Q were
Speaker 1: three times more likely to cyber bully themselves, and kids
Speaker 1: who are cyber bullied by others were twelve times more
Speaker 1: likely to later train the abuse on themselves. As one
Speaker 1: sixteen year old girl wrote on her survey, after this
Speaker 1: happened at school and online, I became very depressed. I
Speaker 1: didn't like myself very much. I felt like I deserved
Speaker 1: to be treated this way, so I thought I would
Speaker 1: get in on the fun. The researchers say that this
Speaker 1: kind of self harming and self hating behavior seems completely
Speaker 1: irrational from a psychological standpoint, that it's actually a classic
Speaker 1: example of what are called maladaptive coping mechanisms when coping
Speaker 1: with depression or abuse. Hindu Just says adults do this
Speaker 1: a sort of thing. Sometimes we indulge in alcohol or drugs,
Speaker 1: use smoking as a crutch, engage in reckless behavior and
Speaker 1: reckless choices, sexual or otherwise. The researchers stressed that much
Speaker 1: more study needs to be done in order to understand
Speaker 1: the extent of digital self harming behaviors and their underlying causes,
Speaker 1: but that it's important for parents, teachers, and law enforcement
Speaker 1: to understand that it exists and to not assume that
Speaker 1: abusive and disturbing posts necessarily originated from outside cyber bullies.
Speaker 1: Organizations like the cyber Smile Foundation and to Write Love
Speaker 1: on Her Arms not only offer support for people who
Speaker 1: struggle with depression, self harming behavior, and cyber bullying, but
Speaker 1: provide volunteer opportunities to spread messages of positivity and support online.
Speaker 1: Today's episode was written by Dave Ruse and produced by
Speaker 1: Tristan McNeil. If you are someone you know is struggling,
Speaker 1: check out the organizations we just mentioned, or Google for
Speaker 1: other resources in your area. I probably haven't met you,
Speaker 1: but I think you're at And of course, for more
Speaker 1: on this and lots of other mental health topics at
Speaker 1: our home planet, how Stuff Works dot com. M