How To Avoid Cyber Control?
There is a form of violence that has increased about 40% in recent times. It appears mainly in teenagers and uses the cell phone as a surveillance, domination and psychological abuse mechanism. How to avoid cyber control? What educational and preventive guidelines could we put into practice to reduce the impact of this worrying reality?
The truth is that we are facing a relatively new phenomenon, in which the unanimous collaboration of most social agents is required. Family and school are included in this. Cyber violence in young couples shows us, once again, how abuse is linked to our society, finding accommodation in any form of communication or relationship between people.
New technologies are one more mechanism to exercise dominance over the other. What is problematic is that research in recent years says that psychological violence is present in 9 out of 10 young couples. This is what the work Preventing dating violence and promoting life skills in adolescents, published in 2015, points out.
Adolescents continue to take highly harmful myths, such as that jealousy is an unmistakable sign of love, correct. Furthermore, that the couple has the right to cross the boundaries of privacy and intimacy in relation to cell phone use. All of this sets up a scenario as problematic as it is worrisome.
4 tips to avoid cyber control
“Who are you talking to? Who is this person that appears in the photo? Let me read your messages. Give me your social media passwords. Delete what you posted on Instagram because I didn’t like it…” . Avoiding cyber control is more complicated than we think due to a surprising fact. One in three young people consider it inevitable or acceptable that this kind of dynamic appears in the relationship.
Currently, cyberpsychology, the new field of study that analyzes the relationship between people and new technologies, has a clear aspect. Cyber violence against a partner is already the most common type of abuse in teenage relationships. It arises because the permissiveness and tolerance to this type of behavior, which not everyone associates with psychological abuse, has increased.
When this kind of intimidation perpetuates itself over time, the attrition is devastating. The victim has serious problems at all levels: social, emotional, physical health… A large part of these teenagers are completely subject to the imaginary of romantic love.
This scheme justifies, in many cases, domination behaviors and the idea that being a couple is not leaving room for privacy, intimacy and even less for individuality. The control exercised over the cell phone does not stop there, as domination extends its tentacles to any area of the other’s life.
What dimensions should our young people take into account? Let’s look at it below.
1. Loving is not controlling, but trusting
Teens need to reframe many of the structures they have integrated about love relationships. Schools and institutes must develop educational programs from which to clarify the foundations that build healthy, enriching and healthy love. We need to eliminate schemes like being a couple gives us a certificate to control each other.
Therefore, something that our young people and teenagers must understand from an early age is that being a couple means being able to trust each other. All forms of control are repression and suffering. None of the latter is allowed.
2. The use of my cell phone is mine alone
If we want to avoid cyber control, we must not provide means. We will not give our passwords to our partners. Loving someone a lot and being loved does not justify that we have to give them the absolute use of our cell phone. The other person does not have the right to read our WhatsApp conversations, nor to ask us to block certain people or delete certain posts.
The cell phone and what we do with it every day belongs to us alone. It’s private, intimate, personal, and that dimension is not in the hands of others, even if those hands belong to the partner.
3. How to avoid cyber control? If it makes you feel bad, it’s not love
Ask for an answer every two seconds. Be angry and insult you when he sees you are online and not talking to him. Treat you with contempt or make fun of you for that photo you posted on Instagram. Forbid you from talking to certain people. Require you to give him your cell phone when he asks for it. Asking where you are and what you are doing every few minutes…
If we want to avoid cyber control, we must start with a simple rule: if it hurts you, it’s not love, if the other doesn’t respect you, they don’t love you.
4. Everything can improve: don’t hesitate to ask for help
We highlighted this at the beginning. Many teenagers normalize psychological abuse and cyberbullying. They assume that these practices of domination and defamation are normal in an emotional bond and therefore can go months without action. Tolerance and the inability to understand that what happens to them is violence often makes it difficult for them to ask for help.
The closest environment needs to be able to detect the signals. The family, the school, the group of friends… Educating in healthy relationships and knowing how to identify psychological abuse behaviors is something that our children and adolescents must learn as soon as possible. In this way, they will be able to detect the reality that they or their own friends live.
Likewise, and not least, they must also remember that they can get out of this painful situation. Everything can be better, everything can be solved. All they need to do is ask an adult for help. The only way to avoid cyber control is to educate and work together.
