The relatively new phenomenon of cyber bullying is often considered only a problem for children and teenagers. However, adults who use social media admit they too are finding themselves on the receiving end of aggressive behaviour.
A relationship ending is often the catalyst for one spurned lover to take to the virtual world to lambast the one who ended the romance. While that kind of reaction may be considered natural in the heat of the moment, more worrying are those who take to the Internet to stalk their exes.
Of some concern to employers is the admission from many workers that they have either posted or received aggressive or bullying messages online from co-workers. Meanwhile, employees should be aware that more employers are now trawling social media sites for information about their staff and taking action when what is posted is considered detrimental to the company.
This kind of cyber bullying is only now beginning to attract the sort of headlines it has been garnering for some time when children are involved but it’s no less serious and no less worrying for those being bullied.
Technology means that a rejected partner can air your dirty linen in public in the time it takes to upload a picture to a website. A survey for online security firm McAfee revealed that one in 10 Americans has been threatened online by an ex. Of those threatened, 60% had photographs, emails or text messages never meant for public consumption posted online.
In an online survey for anti-virus firm AVG, one in 10 participants revealed that they had discovered colleagues using social media to talk about them behind their backs with 11% saying they had been embarrassed by some of the pictures and videos of them placed on social media sites.
Companies are only now beginning to initiate workplace policies around social media to limit the scale of cyber bullying.
In the meantime, the moral of the story for everyone is to use their privacy settings wisely and to think twice before texting that picture or uploading that wacky status update.
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