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