One of the most harmful things people say about cyberbullying is the oldest and least effective piece of advice: just ignore it. Log off. Don’t give them the attention. As if the problem is your response, not the behavior causing it. As if the solution is simply to not let cruelty affect you, and if it does, that’s a personal failure rather than a natural human response to being targeted.
Cyberbullying causes real psychological harm. This is not anecdotal — it’s documented in research. Studies consistently show that sustained online harassment is associated with elevated rates of anxiety, depression, self-harm, and suicidal ideation. These outcomes don’t happen because the targets are weak. They happen because human beings are social animals who are affected by how they’re treated, and sustained cruelty — however it’s delivered — takes a toll.
The “just ignore it” advice also misunderstands the nature of online harassment. You can log off, but you can’t easily log your social awareness off. When something cruel about you is circulating, you know it’s circulating — you know people are seeing it, forming opinions, having reactions — whether you’re actively looking at it or not. The social reality of what’s happening doesn’t disappear when you close the app.
There’s also often a social cost to being targeted that extends beyond the platform. Cyberbullying frequently intersects with in-person dynamics — the people doing it are often the same people you see at school. The harassment doesn’t stay digital.
Acknowledging that it’s affecting you is not weakness. It’s accuracy. Being affected by sustained cruelty is what human beings do. The strength is in what you do with that — in telling someone, in getting support, in not letting the cruelty become a private shame you carry alone.
You don’t have to be tougher than this. You have to be supported enough to get through it.