Éléments pour une psychopathologie du virtuel : le harcèlement virtuel

Abstract

AimCyberbullying particularly affects teenagers, among whom 12% report being victimized. Current research explores the psychopathogenic issues of cyberbullying, and its risk factors, but little research has analysed the processual aspects of this phenomenon and what differentiates cyberbullying from the more classic forms of harassment. In this article we propose to determine the specific features and mechanisms of cyberbullying. MethodThe method is based on a review of the literature including existing research and definitions of cyberbullying, on clinical observation and on psychoanalytic metapsychology. ResultCyberbullying differs from classic bullying on two criteria: anonymity and the reversal from private to public. It is also an effect of the characteristics of Web 2.0, namely the immediate diffusion of content through the virtual community, where interactivity is very potent. DiscussionThe analysis of cyberbullying highlights three issues: viral otherness, the virtual community and a toxic disinhibition relating to the mediation of the screen. However, we cannot reduce cyberbullying to the sole digital sphere. There is a movement known as virtualization-update, whereby the cyberbullying is rendered omnipresent via harassment at school. Every sphere in the life of the bullied or harassed subject is thus affected. ConclusionsA social network can become a place of transgression, aggressiveness, even perversion, and a weapon of destruction of an individual. Cyberbullying thus appears as a psychopathology of the virtual sphere in everyday life. It forms from a traumatic experience, immersing the adolescent in a identity disorder and in an impossible melancholic mourning. If the harassment is not checked in time, the psychological consequences are catastrophic.