The bully in the black mirror

黑镜里的恶霸

Why more young Americans are cyber-bullying themselves

为什么越来越多的美国年轻人在网上欺凌自己

词汇

cyber-bullying/网络欺凌

As adolescents’ social lives have migrated online, so too has a digital manifestation of self-harm

随着青少年的社会生活迁移到网上，欺凌也随着展现出数字化

词汇

Manifestation/显示，表征

Jan 11th 2020 |

ON A FRIDAY night in 2016, Natalie Natividad, a 15-year-old in Hebbronville, Texas, took a fatal overdose of pills after enduring months of cyber-bullying. Most of the alleged taunts—that she was ugly, that she should kill herself—came on After School, an app that allows classmates to discuss one another anonymously. Her suicide prompted an investigation. The app’s operators tracked which accounts had sent the abuse, while officials interviewed teachers and students. “We just want some justice,” said Natalie’s sister shortly after the death. “Whoever is bullying, I hope that they stop.”

2016年的一个周五晚上，15岁的娜塔莉·纳蒂维达(Natalie Natividad)在遭受了几个月的网络欺凌后，服用了致命量的药物。她所受到的嘲讽，大多数都责骂她长的丑，丑到该自杀；而这些言论都源自一款允许学生相互之间匿名讨论的程序“放学后（After School）”。她的自杀引起了调查。该应用程序的运营商追踪哪些账户发送了辱骂信息，同时官员们还采访了老师和学生。“我们只是想要获得一些公正，”娜塔莉的姐姐在她死后不久说。“不管是谁在欺负人，我希望他们停止这种行为。”

词汇

Fatal/致命的；重大的；毁灭性的

Alleged/所谓的；声称的

Taunt/ 嘲弄（话），讥讽（话）

Anonymously/不具名地；化名地

There were no bullies to find. The inquiry revealed that Natalie had secretly sent the abusive messages to herself. Such anonymous “digital self-harm”, as researchers call it, is increasingly common. A study in 2019 found that nearly 9% of American adolescents have done it, up from around 6% in a previous study from 2016, according to an author of both studies, Sameer Hinduja, director of the Cyberbullying Research Centre and professor of criminology at Florida Atlantic University. Despite these numbers—and the fact that teenagers in 2020 spend much of their lives online—“People are uniformly shocked to learn that this problem exists,” says Justin Patchin, another director of the centre and professor of criminal justice at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.

但结果却是没有人欺凌她。调查显示，娜塔莉曾秘密地给自己发送辱骂性的信息。研究人员称这种匿名的“数字自残”行为越来越普遍。这两项研究的作者之一、佛罗里达大西洋大学(Florida Atlantic University)网络欺凌研究中心(Cyberbullying Research Centre)主任、犯罪学教授辛杜贾(Sameer Hinduja)说，2019年的一项研究发现，近9%的美国青少年做过这种事，高于2016年之前一项研究的6%左右。尽管有这些数字——以及预期2020年青少年将大部分时间花在网络上的事实——“人们都对这个问题的存在感到震惊，”该中心的另一位主任、威斯康星大学奥克莱尔分校(University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire)刑事司法教授贾斯廷•帕钦(Justin Patchin)这样说道。

词汇

Uniformly/一致地

 

Why do it? Ana, a 20-year-old from Alabama, says she wanted to see if someone would stick up for her. At 14, she anonymously posted insults about her appearance to Ask.fm, a public question-and-answer site. Then she waited for other people to defend her. Her motivations, to express self-loathing and to get a reaction, are some of the most common among children who abuse themselves online.

为什么这样做?来自阿拉巴马州今年20岁的安娜，她说她想看看是否有人会支持她。14岁时，她在“Ask.fm”（一个公共问答网站）匿名发帖，责骂自己的外貌。然后她等着别人来保护她。她表达自我厌恶和得到反应的动机，在网络中自虐的儿童群体中是最常见的。

词汇

self-loathing/自我憎恨的

About a third say digital self-harm achieved what they had hoped for. Riel, a university student in Georgia, says it was a useful way to counter other online abuse. As a 15-year-old, he created funny tweets that got him more followers but also more hate mail. Strangers started sending him homophobic taunts. At first, Riel deleted the messages, but that made him feel anxious. So he decided to imitate his tormentors, anonymously posting hateful comments about himself online. Others sent him kind responses, which he says “helped overshadow the actual negative, and sometimes vulgar” insults he had received.

约三分之一的人表示，网络自残达到了他们的预期。里尔是乔治亚州的一名大学生，他说这是一种对抗其他网络虐待的有效方式。15岁时，他在推特上发了一些有趣的帖子，这些帖子让他获得了更多的关注，但也让他收到了更多的攻击性邮件。陌生人开始向他发出恐同的嘲讽。起初，瑞尔删除了这些信息，但这让他感到焦虑。因此，他决定模仿折磨他的人，在网上匿名发表对自己的仇恨评论。其他人给他发来了友好的回复，他说这些回复“掩盖了他所受到的实际的负面的，有时甚至是粗俗的”侮辱。

词汇

Vulgar/粗俗的

Several aspects of Riel’s background made him more likely to hurt himself in cyberspace. He had previously been a victim of cyber-bullying by others, which makes people nearly 12 times more likely to cyber-bully themselves. He is not heterosexual and he is male, traits which respectively make people 2.75 times and 1.3 times more likely to digitally self-harm. Unlike girls, boys disproportionately told researchers they self-cyber-bully to be funny.

瑞尔的几个方面的背景使他更有可能在网络空间伤害自己。此前，他曾是网络欺凌的受害者，这使得人们自己也更容易受到网络欺凌。身为男性的他却不是异性恋，这两个特征分别使人们在网络上自我伤害的可能性增加了2.75倍和1.3倍。与女孩不同的是，男孩们不成比例地告诉研究人员，他们自我网络欺凌是为了好玩。

词汇

Heterosexual/异性的；异性恋的

Even so, Elizabeth Englander, director of the Massachusetts Aggression Reduction Centre, presumes there could be a deeper reason. Boys may have “fewer legitimate ways to get attention and sympathy”, she says. Whatever the profile of children who insult themselves online, doing so “betrays mental-health and well-being issues”, warns Mr Hinduja. Depression and drug use are also predictors. And like physical self-harm, the online version is linked to suicidal thoughts, though it is not yet clear which comes first.

即便如此，马萨诸塞州攻击减少中心（Massachusetts Aggression Reduction Centre）主任伊丽莎白·英格兰德认为，可能还有更深层次的原因。她说，男孩们“获得关注和同情的合法途径可能更少”。Hinduja先生警告说，不管在网上侮辱自己的孩子的形象如何，这样做“违背了心理健康和幸福问题”。抑郁和吸毒也是预测因素。就像身体上的自残一样，网络版本也与自杀念头有关，尽管还不清楚哪一个先出现。

词汇

Legitimate/合法的；正当的

Much about digital self-harm is still poorly understood. Even the reason for its recent increase has mystified researchers. Mr Hinduja speculates that the rise correlates with increasing emotional instability and deteriorating emotional fulfilment among adolescents. That is reflected in a host of other online trends. Some young people turn to a less direct version—seeking out existing self-destructive content, such as blogs that glorify eating disorders or physical self-harm—rather than producing abusive content. Others hint that they want a response by “sadfishing”, or posting emotional confessions on social media in the hope that friends will comfort them.

很多关于数字自我伤害的事情仍然知之甚少。甚至其最近增长的原因也让研究人员感到困惑。Hinduja先生推测，这种上升与青少年情绪的不稳定和情绪满足的恶化有关。这反映在许多其他在线趋势中。一些年轻人转向不那么直接的版本——寻找现有的自杀倾向的内容，如赞美饮食失调或身体自我伤害的博客——而不是产生辱骂性的内容。另一些人则暗示，他们想要通过“施虐”得到回应，或者在社交媒体上发布情绪化的忏悔，希望朋友们能安慰他们。

词汇

mystify /使迷惑

self-destructive/自毁的；表现自杀欲望的

As a technological matter, identifying digital self-harm is relatively easy. Usually this involves finding the computer or account that created the harmful material. The harder part is what to do after that, says Mr Patchin. Social-media platforms might consider directing known self-cyber-bullies to counselling services. Tumblr, a blogging website, already posts helpline numbers next to anorexia-related search results. Teachers and parents could treat digital self-harm as an indication of other underlying problems. The worst response, according to Ms Englander, would be to dismiss evidence of bullying because it might be faked. “Any time a kid claims they’re being bullied, they’re struggling with something,” she says. For many, the source of that something is not an external tormentor, but one within.

作为一个技术问题，识别数字自残相对容易。通常情况下，这涉及到找到产生有害内容的电脑或账户。Patchin先生说，更困难的部分是发现之后该做什么。社交媒体平台可能会考虑将那些自我网络欺凌者引导到咨询服务机构。博客网站汤不热（Tumblr）已经在厌食症相关的搜索结果旁张贴了热线电话号码。教师和家长可以将网络自残视为其他潜在问题的迹象。英格兰德女士（Englander）表示，最糟糕的反馈是由于这些证据可能是伪造的而无视欺凌的证据。她说:“任何时候一个孩子说他们被欺负了，他们都在和一些事情做斗争。”对他们中的大多数来说，这种痛苦的根源不是来自外部的折磨，而是来自内心的折磨。

词汇

anorexia /厌食

tormentor/使苦恼的东西；使苦痛的人