2024 - Shadows on the Screen

WINNER - Kate Zhang, Methodist Ladies’ College

Unlocking my phone, each pixel beams at me, luring me towards the screen. Individually, these colourful small dots are negligible. Yet, in unity, their colours merge and form the rainbow of Instagram, the ghost of Snapchat. With hands reaching out, they invite me to join them in a pursuit of escape from reality. They come in the form of short TikTok videos, Instagram posts … The list is endless. But most alarmingly, they form the icon of each social media user, their words, their actions.

User98372 commented on my post "This is horrendous. Delete this."

I freeze. The pixels on my screen that form this comment are knives through my heart. Why does this comment matter? After all, it is just a stranger on the internet, without name, without face. But for some reason, this hurts more. A stranger purposefully took the time out of their day to comment this on a post that I was confident in.

Immediately, I archive the post.

More and more, the internet permeates our daily life. It functions in isolation from reality, offering us the chance to develop a new persona. For those who desperately require a space outside of challenging home and school environments, the internet acts as a haven. In the world of social media, we can shape and tweak our character however we wish to. Yet, the opportunity to present ourselves in a different light from reality has also created an environment in which individuals exploit the freedom of anonymous speech to harmful uses.

Social media platforms are dominated by individuals whose identities are by the long and trail of numbers after their usernames. These coded aliases act as barriers that remove the anxiety of identification, alleviating ownership of responsible comments and respectful actions towards other living, unique, and emotional humans on the other side of the screen. The perceived lack of accountability is exploited, tossed in dirt, by users who ritually bring down others on social media for their daily entertainment. For teenagers, their behaviours are further exacerbated when they are influenced by peer pressure to echo others’

hurtful comments. This creates an online environment wherein genuine users are overwhelmed with toxic reactions and sent into a spiral of self-doubt.

According to Headspace, more than half of Australian youths have experienced cyberbullying in their lifetime. This is an alarming number, considering Smout et al suggests that around 97% of Australian teenagers use social media. Such a paradoxical expectation for teenagers to maintain an online presence yet be confident in the toxicity of online platforms has thus exacerbated teenagers’ anxieties towards their individuality – in a time where their self￾esteem is the most malleable.

Of course, the obtainment of social media is inevitable for most teenagers. It is a tool for instantaneous communication, as well as a catalyst for bringing communities together in times requiring change. Eliminating social media is impossible and unnecessary. However, we should not be encouraging the current environment where the anonymity of online pseudonyms is stopping individuals from exercising their basic human respect. We need change. We should be responsible for protecting our youths from the unnecessary hurt of online harassment which thrives off anonymity. We should act together to foster an environment in which our teens feel safe to appropriately express themselves and form their identities.

This can take shape in the smallest of steps. Each one of us who are social media users can leave encouragement, instead of judgement, comment on another post. We should point out an inappropriate comment. We should press the ‘report’ button when we observe online harassment, calling out those who are breaching the safety of our online environment. Though these steps may be small, just like the pixels on our screens, we can compound such small steps to meaningful change in making social media an inclusive and supportive environment for teens. Of course, change should also take shape in a larger scale, by large social media corporations implementing greater regulation of offensive and harassing comments and messages. From adopting stricter attitudes towards irresponsible users, large corporations send powerfulmessages to society, signalling an integral and necessary change in the phenomenon of internet anonymity, reintroducing the responsibility of being a respectful individual onto each user.

Ultimately, all these changes should be implemented with one of the most important stakeholders of this debate in mind – teenagers. As such, this change also necessitates education which informs and encourages teens on how to appropriately use social media as an opportunity to develop, not deflate, their and their peers’ perceptions of identity and belonging.

Anonymity poses the risk of unaccountable harassment online. Yet, the anonymity of social media also frees us, brings us together, and offers us connections. So, we must, as a society, responsibly make anonymity a benefit, not a harm, to our youth.

RUNNER UP - Alissa Song

“Embarrassing washing my eyes now with SOAP”

JokerGirl1364: “LOOK at her unattractive dull brown hair and the L sized dress."

“I would rather have no friends than be her, LOL”

JokerGirl1364 had been trolling Amelia for weeks now, whoever that might be. Despite her best efforts at blocking her, more and more hate comments kept appearing on her selfies on different hangouts on Instagram from a series of Joker Girl 1364. They all sinisterly seemed to be the same person. Mean, cruel and humiliating, wrecking her mental health. Even after deleting her posts, starving for days followed by compulsive bursts of binge eating, she had put on an extra 10kg. All those bags of chips she had consumed over the course of the last month were not able to dill the growing hole of invisibility and shame which she had sunk into. As depressing as it may sound, Amelia is just one out of hundreds of thousands of young people impacted by the online anonymity of cyberbullies trollers each year. The addition of the ability to post comments on different social media platforms anonymously is destroying teenagers’ mental health across the globe. Fearing a loss of reputation due to online rumours can ruin the public image of a vulnerable teenager, devastated by their reduced friend circle, connection and popularity.

Since online anonymity and identity shielding encourages cyberbullying and online abuse due to reduced accountability, there isn't a lot an inexperienced teenager can do to stop the perpetrators, let alone find out their real identities. Did you know, according to ScienceDirect, around 750 Australian teens between the ages of 13-17 commit suicide because of cyberbullying taking place on social media platforms each year?. It has been shown that cyberbullying has increased suicidal thoughts by 14.5% and suicide attempts by 8.7%, in 2020? with the numbers rising at an alarming rate.

The impact of cyberbullying on teenagers has been massive, leading to a spike in cases of body dysmorphia, anxiety and depression, and a growing pandemic of crippling self absorption, loneliness and isolation. In extreme cases it can also be the reason for self and bodily harming . And that’s not all. I’m sure we all know someone who has fallen for an online scam and lost money, when a fake customer service representative from the local bank has convinced them they need to transfer $5000 to prevent their account from being frozen. Identity theft in bank fraud is another horrifying example of cyber crime and because so many abusers are overseas. Hacking, phishing, identity theft, the local police are restricted from holding them accountable and punishing them according to national law.

Online anonymity is a monster with a mask that no one is able to catch. But what can we do about it? How can we responsibly protect and safeguard the rights of every individual to be respected online? How can we prevent this erosion of privacy completely? We can’t. As a teenager, all I can share is my positive experience of online anonymity. As part of the 7 Cups community, I have found it so easy and helpful to share my thoughts and concerns in a supportive caring space where everyone came together to support each other. I recommended this online anonymous support group with my friend Amelia and she felt way more comfortable sharing her problems as an anonymous user since it protected her identity. The comments were supportive and kind, ranging from “I’ve been through that, I hope you the best!” to sharing ways to try and fix the problem. Maybe that’s what we need to do. Creating more positive safe spaces for people to unload themselves without feeling the burden of judgement and breaching their privacy.

With the positive uses of online anonymity, this may be a possible solution to deal with cyberbullying as users can find healing and support through it. Another possible solution to deal with the negative impacts of online anonymity may be educational programs for teenagers. As more and more of their daily activities move online, it’s important to educate them on ways to cope with the negative effects of online anonymity. Teaching teenagers more knowledge about cyberbullying through online anonymity and how to report them would also reduce the chances of decreasing mental health. Helplines would also help decrease the negative impacts of online anonymity by increasing mental health awareness and teaching about cyberbullying prevention. Although it may feel hard to reach out, through education, we can better improve the uses of online anonymity together.