The phenomenon of cyber-bullying is expanding in a worrying way: does this mean that more and more adolescents and children are being born "predisposed" to behave in a violent way? Is there a particular gene, or biological conditions that generate the predisposition or instinct to become a cyberbully? In general: are you born or become a bully?
The development of cyberbullying, that is, of that new form of bullying closely linked to the massive spread of new technologies, can be explained mainly by using the concept of "presumed invisibility". Only a very small proportion of those acting as electronic bullies behave in a similar way because of complex neurophysiological problems, or more generally, mental problems. One cannot speak of the electronic bully as a mentally ill person, or as a person with a disturbed personality: the cyberbully is not a "sick person". Biology and physiology in fact, in 99% of cases, does not "condemn" a person to become a bully of the Net. Bulli is not born.
However, you can become cyber-bulls very easily, and this because the enormous development of technological tools has provided adolescents with the means to behave in a very different way from how they would behave in the "real world": the virtual world offers the illusion of becoming anonymous, almost invisible, and therefore the fear of being traceable and punished decreases significantly. The "presumed invisibility" therefore becomes the means by which most adolescents embark on the road of bullying. As soon as you enter the web, in fact, each subject can undress the usual clothes worn in everyday life, to dress those suitable to enter a new world, a world based not so much on the traditional concept of I, but a world based on the concept of "Nickname", personal account, On-Line Person, etc.. Real" names and surnames are left out of the virtual world: in such a new dimension, in fact, it is necessary to be untraceable, unidentifiable, unrecognizable.
Through the use of these conceptual tools it is possible to give an explanation of the aggressive behaviors put in place by bullies in their communications via the Internet. Just as in daily life the victim is "removed" and marginalized by a group of subjects, in the same way inside a virtual room there are defamatory and aggressive behaviors towards certain targets: the practice of kick is in fact one of the most widespread in the rooms. As soon as we enter the universe of the Internet, for example inside a chat-room, each of us appears to the other not as I of everyday life, but as I of the virtual world: each of us leaves in the "real world" all his true personal traits, to enter in the guise of a virtual subject ready to exchange information with another virtual subject. It is thanks to the creation of the "web-identity" (or virtual identity) that people act free from the usual constraints imposed by social norms and the morality of everyday life. The web uninhibits. The nickname generates the illusion of wearing a mask that will totally conceal the true identity: acting unethically or violently will therefore become easier if you wear such a mask.
The cyber-bull is nothing more than a subject who wears a sort of virtual mask (On-Line Person), and who uses this new situation to perform uninhibited and aggressive behavior. It is important to underline that not only the bully has the impression of being invisible, but also that it is the victim herself who appears invisible: both the figure of the perpetrator, and that of the victim in fact, assume virtual identities and nicknames. Nancy Willard, a scholar at the Center for Safe and Responsible Use of Internet, summarizes the issue with the phrase: You can't see me, I can't see you. If on the one hand, therefore, the bully considers himself invisible and therefore unassailable and undetectable, on the other hand the victim appears to the bully not as a real person, but as a semi-anonymous entity and not endowed with emotions or feelings. That is, in the relationship between cyber-bulk and cyber-victim, there is a lack of all the feedback that makes the bully understand that the person he is behaving unethically towards is suffering. Milgram's studies carried out in the seventies are the greatest confirmation of how the "social distance" can be the cause of violent and horrible acts. It is very difficult that in the CMC (computer communications) there are such stimuli: the body language, the sound of the voice, and all the other aspects of communication that happens in the real world are missing.
The consequence of this is that the bully cannot really understand that the pain, frustration, humiliation, generated towards the victim, are all real feelings.