With Instagram reaching up to approximately 1 billion users in June of 2018, this social media platform is considered to be a socially acceptable part of any person’s daily life today.

It is fair to assume that a majority of you that came across this article, have had an experience or connection to social media in one way or another.

Although social media plays an enormous role in promoting businesses, demonstrating our interests, and connecting people throughout the world; it unfortunately has heavily increased the amount of cyber bullying.

Have you ever just been scrolling through Instagram when a disrespectful or terribly mean comment catches your attention? Since Instagram is such a well-known platform globally, especially for teens and young adults, it’s likely that your answer will be yes.

Due to the growth of technology in the last decade, humans tend to hide behind their screens in general; especially while using social media. Shockingly, a fair amount of these people turn to cyberbullying, giving them a feeling of being powerful at the moment.

With the introduction to social media, people have less face to face and physical interactions, which provides an opportunity to be mean without the presence of the victim.

According to the article, Instagram tops cyber-bullying study, around seven percent of young social network users claim that they have experienced bullying on Instagram.

With the intention to prevent cyberbullying on Instagram, the company decided they would have to create new features for their platform in order to prevent these resentments from continuing.

Once cyberbullying started to become a serious problem for teens and other social media users, platforms such as Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, and Facebook were obligated to increase security and privacy options for all customers.

Sky News states: “Instagram is introducing new features which will automatically challenge users before they post something which might be considered bullying, and allow victims to secretly block their tormentors.”

After this feature has been integrated into their platform, Instagram has noticed quite a reduction in mean comments and messages being sent out.

Furthermore, young victims seem to reject the idea to block, unfollow, or report cyber bullies because many of them struggle with interaction that occurs in real life, and the issues can escalate to something worse than previously.

Because of this challenge, Instagram created a solution that permits a user to restrict a comment, appear inactive on Instagram, and turn read receipts off so that the victim can remain as disconnected with the bully as much as possible.

In the future, if something disrespectful happens to you or someone you know on social media, don’t be a bystander, truly attempt to make a difference. These advanced features that Instagram administered are there on purpose and are meant to be utilised if necessary.

Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash

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