Stalkers lurk on your ever post, your every digital move.
Your ex-boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse seeks revenge and talks trash about you on Facebook or publishes your private intimate photos and videos on YouTube and in spam text.
Disgruntled clients create a web page to destroy your business.
Unsuccessful job candidates seek revenge and create a web page to destroy your business.
Creditors troll your Facebook and send messages to your friends to ask questions about you.
Strangers take issue with your looks, your name, your profession, your gender, your social status, your sexual preference, or your existence.
You don't have to go far to find an adult cyberbully. They sit in every nook and cranny of your computing devices, lying in wait, ready to pounce, just because technology makes it easy for them to do so.
@notonmyinternet shared a link to a 2015 New Yorker article that talks about how the Internet has changed basic bullying. Bullying researchers are finally seeing that cyberbullying isn't just a school age problem. It's as equally, or more, prevalent in the adult world.
The article admits: "To date, no one has systematically studied how different bullying settings affect bullying behavior..." Three years ago, when I began researching business and adult cyberbullying, there were very few links to people talking about it. The search engines would only bring up school bullies. Today, there are a handful of links, but most still revert to children.
There is a lot of room for psychologists and academic researchers to step up their game. Our lives and our economies depend on it. If you think about the impact cyberbullying has financially on adults and businesses ... if only there were more statistics. Because only then will our law enforcement have any teeth to prevent it.
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