Are your kids engaged in digital self-harm? Know the warning signs
Imagine creating a fake profile on a social media site and then posting bad things about your real self — then waiting to see what people say about your real self.
That's what some teens are doing, and psychologists and psychiatrics have created a term for this: digital self-harm.
Research in the journal Child and Adolescent Mental Health found that about 9% of adolescents had posted something anonymously about themselves that was mean, and 5% said they had cyberbullied themselves.
The study also found that teens who engaged in digital self-harm were five to seven times more likely to have considered suicide and nine to 15 times more likely to have attempted suicide than teens who had not engaged in the behavior.
Chris Hansen, a licensed professional counselor with Thriveworks in Austin who specializes in partnering with teens and adults coping with trauma, depression, anxiety and self-esteem issues, describes digital self-harm in this way: "It's almost like they are gaslighting themselves."
Parental support:Feeling alone in parenting a kid with mental illness?
Why do kids use digital self-harm?
Hansen said the digital self-harm begins because teens want attention, but when they get negative attention, it makes them depressed and anxious, he said. This is particularly interesting because a lot of times they post bad things about themselves to try to eliminate anxiety and to get attention, but it just fuels the anxiety and gives them negative attention they don't want.
Hansen said digital self-harm is similar to when people serially cheat, binge eat, gamble or have another form of addiction.
"It's no different than a heroin addict," he said. "I get a euphoric feeling, then I feel guilty about it, then I have to do it again. I know what I'm doing is wrong. It's self-defeating."
In Hansen's experience, mainly males and often LGBTQ people engage in digital self-harm, but that doesn't mean a cis female is immune. Boys are often more covert about their interactions on social media than girls, which makes it more difficult for parents to see.
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How can you tell if your child is using digital self-harm?
Hansen tells parents to look for these signs:
Do they minimize the computer screen every time you walk in the room or quickly put the phone away?
Are they distracted by what's popping up on their phone or computer?
Do they have multiple social media accounts and accounts for people who are not them? Don't know? Hansen recommends parents be what their kids will consider intrusive from an early age and set the expectation that computer and phone use will be monitored.
Has their mood shifted recently? Do they seem off?
Kids will often deny it or complain about parents not trusting them, but "if it smells like a rat, walks like a rat, it might be a rat," he said.
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How do you treat digital self-harm?
Kids who engage in digital self-harm need to be closely monitored for relapses. They also need to have cognitive behavioral therapy to practice changing their thinking.
"We teach them: Just because they think it doesn't mean it's reality," Hansen said.
Someone with anxiety might leap to bad conclusions automatically rather than checking the facts: Does that person in the store really think you're ugly? Was that person even looking at you? How do you know that person in the store doesn't think you are cute? Maybe that person wasn't even thinking about you. Maybe the person was thinking about a grocery list.
After eight to 10 weeks of therapy, usually the kid will be able to replace those negative thoughts with rational thoughts.
"It's all about what they think about themselves," Hansen said.
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Are your kids engaged in digital self-harm? Know the signs
