April 6, 2021
Juli Fraga
THE WASHINGTON POST – Imagine this scenario: You discover a degrading remark about your daughter on her Instagram account that said, “You’re disgusting. No one wants to see your ugly face.” Suddenly, you’re worried that someone is cyberbullying your tween. But when you ask your daughter about the online jab, she admits that she set up a fake account and posted the comment herself.
Though it may sound far-fetched to parents who didn’t grow up on social media, social scientists are now devoting research to the practice they’re calling “self-cyberbullying” or “digital self-harm”, in which social media users set up fake accounts and use those accounts to post mean comments about themselves.