IBADAN (SUNDIATA POST)- Experts in information technology and youth support have called for sensitisation of Nigerians on the implications of cyber bullying and how to curb it.
The experts made the call in separate interviews with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Ibadan on Monday.
A Geographic Information System (GIS) expert, Mr David Afolayan, described cyber bullying as the use of technology to harness, threaten, embarrass or target people.
He said this could be by using online threads, texts, tweets, posts and other means of online communication.
“For it to be cyber bullying, there will be an intent, which is to cause pain or hurt people through various behaviours,” he said.
To Afolayan, cyber bullying is like a canker worm that eats from within, adding that there may not be any physical harm but there are consequences.
He noted that both males and females experience cyber bullying in different ways, adding, however, that females were mostly the target of online bullying, unlike their male counterpart who experienced more of physical bullying.
“Just like it is for physical bullying, there is always a pattern. Bullying is always a repeated action, with the intent to cause harm and influence people negatively.
“There is the need to understand and spot cyber bullying. For young people, you can notice fear, anxiety, sudden withdrawal or not being one’s usual self,” he said.
Afolayan noted that whilst the above might be true for students, it could also be the same for adults when being bullied.
While stating that cyber bullying could cause sleep deprivation and nightmares for victims, he said that people could respond to bullying in different ways, though its experience could be distressing.
He emphasised the need to know the signs of cyber bullying because they could lead to blackmail and threat later.
“The results are all around us, especially when you start to see increase in young people harming themselves or doing things that they will not normally do, while other may simply commit suicide.
“So, there is the need for parents, teachers and people generally as well as government to be aware of it so as to know how to prevent it,” Afolayan said.
According to him, to avoid cyber bullying the ‘golden rule’ is to be nice, both online and in real life.
“This is because anything that is displayed online, the internet does not forget.
“Whatever you placed online can be used against you and it will be a reference point later,” the expert said.
Afolayan called for sensitisation on bullying, both physical and online, as well as its impacts on others.
He called for open discussion on bullying, especially among young people “because most of them don’t know its negative impacts or that it is a criminal offence.”
The GIS expert stressed the need for reaching out to those who had overcome cyber bullying to prevent others from falling victims.
He urged parents to build their children’s self-esteem so that no matter what others might say or do to them, it would not matter.
While enjoining parents to be role models to their children, Afolayan urged teachers and school administrators to be aware of what was going on in their schools and sensitise others.
He said there was a new way of communicating with young people more so as to know how to cope, handle and overcome cyber bullying.
“There is the need to know how to deal with it once you understand the signs and implications.
“If the bullying continues, it should be reported to the police because it is a criminal offence in Nigeria, according to Section 24 of Cyber Crime Act.
“Cyber stalking is when you intentionally send offensive or obscene messages or threaten someone, and it carries a fine of N7 million and imprisonment of between three and five years,” Afolayan said.
Also, the Lead of a non-governmental organisation, YouthInvolve, Mr Moses Solanke, said a child given to bullying was outwardly telling those who care to know that he lacked confidence and security.
According to him, a bully is a feeble-minded person, looking for a place to express dominance, the exact thing he lacks elsewhere.
“Every bully wants to look for someone he can have control over. He/she wants to be heard by force because nobody would ordinarily listen to him.
“Such a child needs help because he is battling for societal acceptance, having, probably, been made to be of low esteem in the family where it all starts.
“So, to fight back, he develops the ‘strength’ (though still a weakness) to look around for other children over whom he could exercise dominion. This makes him feel in charge,” Solanke said.
He noted that unfortunately, since every facet of the world system had now been largely expressed online, bullying had been taken online.
Incidentally, Solanke said that someone’s identity could be hidden online, thus making a bully to develop a rare confidence to go the extra mile to say and expose things he/she wouldn’t dare do physically.
“Every man is a king online. Social media has given every Tom, Dick and Harry the chance to be expressive without caution.
“So, faint-hearted children engage social media to compete for dominance and acceptability.
“The problem is not the social media but the users. The issue is the frame of the mind of the person walking through the cyber world,” he said.
According to him, the cyber-world allows everyone to exhibit good or bad traits, as the case may be.
He, however, called on parents and guardians to be alive to their responsibilities by going offline to build up their children and wards by setting things right in them in the online world.
“Parents must realise that how they treat their children can make bullies out of them.
“If you silence them, scaring them from expressing themselves, they tend to be quiet, yet slowly developing bullish tendencies.
“When parents quarrel or engage in bouts, they are indirectly making bullies out of their children,” Solanke said.
He noted that such a child could grow up looking for another child to suppress, as ‘he simply wants to enjoy frightening another to obey him’.
“Bullies are usually formed in the family, and with online platforms usually uncensored, such a child has limitless energy to charge as a bull against another innocent child who lacks the confidence to stand his ground.
“Stand up to a bully and watch him soft-pedalling,” Solanke said.
Meanwhile, a Consultant in Educational Technology, Dr Oluwakemi Olurinola, urged teenagers to use technology to improve their knowledge and not be distracted with social media.
Olurinola, a lecturer at Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye, Ogun, emphasised the need to use technology for promoting their balanced growth and development.
She enumerated the benefits and opportunities of technology, especially for youths in the 21st century, urging them to use it wisely.
“Technology provides access to information, interactive learning platforms and collaboration that can enhance learning and be solution providers to the various challenges facing the world,” Olurinola said. (NAN)
