Into the Digital Future: Digital Self-Harm and Empathy in the Digital Age with Sameer Hinduja

In this episode of Into the Digital Future, Dr. Sameer Hinduja, Co-Director of the Cyberbullying Research Center, joins hosts Laura Higgins and Jordan Shapiro to explore the complexities of youth behavior in digital spaces, including the concept of digital self-harm. Dr. Hinduja shares his insights on building empathy, resilience, and the role of social media in fostering connection and support. This thought-provoking discussion offers valuable perspectives for parents, educators, and policymakers navigating the challenges of the digital age.

This transcript of the Into the Digital Future podcast has been edited for clarity. Please listen to the full episode here, and learn more about the season. 

Sameer Hinduja: Hello everyone, I’m Sameer Hinduja, Professor of Criminology at Florida Atlantic University and Co-Director of the Cyberbullying Research Center. I also serve as Faculty Associate at the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard University, and I spend my life thinking about youth and technology and how we can promote positive behaviors while also reducing the prevalence of problematic ones. 

Jordan Shapiro: Hi Sameer, so glad to have you here. The thing I really want to talk about—you do this research around digital self-harm. The only place I’ve ever heard anything about it is in your work. I really want to focus on this. And from what I understand, there are times where kids are often their own cyberbullies. They’re bullying themselves. And if I understand it, it’s sometimes as many as 10 percent of teenagers have engaged in this at some point. I’m wondering if, just to get started, can you explain to our listeners, what is digital self-harm? Why are kids doing it? Or why do you think kids are doing it? What do we know about it? Fill us all in.

Sameer Hinduja: Sure. Thanks, Jordan. Thinking about parents, thinking about guardians, obviously there’s a lot of concerns on our minds related to youth technology use.

And we often do think about cyberbullying and maybe inappropriate images. We might think of online predators, etc., digital dating abuse. One of the topics which I feel is very underexplored, even though we’ve had many cases that have made the news and really this should be a priority point for all youth serving adults, whether they’re in government or education or in communities.

And that topic is digital self-harm. And when you think of those words, “digital self-harm,” you understand that digital obviously implies that it’s occurring online, perhaps through messaging, or through social media. The self-harm component might be a little bit complex and interesting because you think about self-harm largely in the traditional sense.

We think about youth who might struggle with certain mental health difficulties and to cope with what they’re going through, they might engage in cutting or burning or one or hitting oneself, and that’s a big part of self-harm. When we move that to the online realm, self-harm actually has to do with the anonymous online posting or sending or sharing of hurtful content about oneself.

Now the key there is it’s anonymous. And so peers, all of your friends on your favorite social media platform, or in your messaging app, they think that you’re being attacked, that you’re being harassed. That you’re being just inundated with hurtful comments by many others, or a select group of others, but actually, it is you.

It is you who is doing it through the use of another screen name or through some sort of anonymous means. And so you might ask, Jordan, why in the world, why in the world would a youth possibly do this? 

Jordan Shapiro: Yeah. It sounds like we’re in a teen movie. It sounds like a screwball teenage comedy.

Sameer Hinduja: Yeah. It’s very puzzling, but to be sure whenever we’re thinking about youth and the behaviors that they engage in, we must always approach it with graciousness and patience and a desire to understand because, our youth, they have good hearts and they have good intentions, but they struggle.

I struggled when I was growing up. We all struggled often very deeply as an adolescent with so many pressures and stresses and concerns. And many times, those took on a life of their own. As we look at the research…conducted across thousands and thousands of youth, we find that youth might engage in digital self-harm, or said another way, they might self-cyberbully, or online-harass themselves, as, for example, a call for attention, and so they’re looking to see whether any of their peers might pipe up and defend them, might rally to their aid in that specific moment because ostensibly they’re being targeted. They’re being harassed or being bullied online, so they want to see who perhaps is their true friend and who are going to passively condone it, who might even encourage it and pile on. 

So that could be one reason. Another reason is it’s a cry for help. And without a doubt, Jordan, you’ll agree with me when I say that it’s quite dysfunctional. And we would much rather have youth drum up the courage and try to be brave and find an adult that they can talk to one-on-one and express what they’re dealing with, what they’re struggling with that might manifest in targeting themselves, engaging in digital self-harm. But again, a call for attention or a cry for help tend to be two of the dominant reasons. Other reasons that are less prevalent include, honestly, they just wanted to joke around and see what the result would be. Some kids are just bored.

Some kids are just doing it for the lolz, as they say, just to try to get some sort of effect or add a little bit of spice to their day. But bottom line, the majority of youth when they do it, it definitely betrays some sort of problems, which we should try to get to the root of. 

Laura Higgins: Just thinking about that, and as you said, when we throw ourselves back to when we were growing up in teenagers, one of the things that comes out time after time on our podcast is it was hard enough being a teenager when we were growing up, but now with the whole online world, as much as we’re really pro-online, it brings so much positivity, but we try to understand, but it is a totally different world that our young people are growing up in.

One thing is, a lot of people, if you were struggling back in the eighties, nineties, you would have diaries. You would still write down those thoughts. And even sometimes, you might reflect and go, oh, I didn’t like myself at that point. But of course, at this time, even those people that might be writing it in a sort of a diarizing journal type way, it is still going out public. And it’s essentially forever. And, as well as the deeper reasons of wanting that affirmation, but even just as a way of expressing it’s a really huge thing. Jordan and I, both parents, we talk about our kids a lot. Sameer, I hope it’s okay to share, I know you’re also a parent.

How are we as grownups meant to respond to this? It’s hard enough sometimes to know if our kids have been bullied. How would we ever understand if they were engaging in this type of behavior? I know we’ve; you’ve talked previously about dimensions of parenting the negative stuff and how we can maybe mitigate bullying.

Are there any factors that we could use or implement and advise our audience that they could use in this particular instance? 

Sameer Hinduja: Absolutely Laura, that’s such a good question. First, before I answer that, I do want to underscore the gravity of this phenomenon because as I described it and as you described it, perhaps it’s a way of expressing oneself or coping with heavy emotions.

I do want to point out that the research is very clear that digital self-harm is strongly associated with traditional self-harm. So said another way, those youth who are targeting themselves online with cruel or hateful comments about themselves, again anonymously, are also much more likely to engage in those traditional forms of self-harm that I mentioned earlier, such as cutting.

And so that’s very concerning. And again, we, on this program, we never ever want to stir up any panic and freak out adults, but we just want to make sure that we truly understand that, okay, this is a reality. Our youth in this day and age with all of these complexities that they face there’s severe outcomes, there’s significant consequences.

So not only is digital self-harm tied to traditional self-harm, but it’s also unfortunately strongly tied to suicidal ideation or thoughts and attempts. And looking at my research here, we found that digital self-harm was tied to a 5- to 7- times increase in suicidal thoughts and a 9- to 15- times increase in suicidal attempts.

So again, we want to take a huge step back and take a deep breath. But digital self-harm needs to be brought up in the same breath as when we’re talking about cyberbullying and sextortion and some of these other major online worries that all parents and guardians have in terms of responding. We always talk about communication.

And so, it’s being in the loop as to what our children are feeling and doing. And of course, that’s tricky because as a professional adult —and you all understand, we’re pulled in so many directions, and it’s extremely hard to carve out the quality time to be able to pick up on what might be considered a warning sign, or a red flag related to isolation or distress.

And oftentimes we do trivialize it— not trivialize it— but we do dismiss it to a degree by saying that they’re an adolescent, this is how it is when they’re adolescents. But being able to press in a little deeper as it relates to their online participation, as it relates to their online expressions, I think can go a long way.

And even just bringing it up, letting them know that you’re familiar with the fact that This is a phenomenon that has made the news. There are major case studies that even pediatricians and school nurses and other healthcare professionals are wanting to devise screening instruments related to this, much like they might design screening instruments related to the proclivity or the potential to engage in self-harm.

This is a massive topic, and it’s affecting a major proportion of youth, not the majority, but again, a meaningful proportion of youth. And so, for that reason let’s have a conversation. Hey, do you know of any of your peers who might have engaged in this behavior? Have you heard about it happening in our community or in our city or in our region?

Why do you think youth do that? Just dialoguing with them about reasons that they might come up with. And then of course, countering them with more healthy, more positive coping mechanisms rather than, again, engaging in digital self-harm. 

Laura Higgins: And one thing I really picked up on is, you said, every child’s different.

We can’t just say, oh, it’s because they’re a teenager, they’re an adolescent. I think one of the things we know. From generally talking about bullying or if you spot a real change in the behavior of your child, we know our own kids. There are quite often signals, which unfortunately we might not pick up on.

But afterwards we reflect and we go, Oh yeah, no, they did. Whether it be, distancing themselves or being grumpier than normal. I think if it is that if we notice that change in behavior, maybe that’s the time to just start paying a bit more attention, having those conversations. 

Sameer Hinduja: And broach the topic, you might feel a little bit uncomfortable using the proper technological jargon.

And by the way, that keeps so many of these conversations from even unfolding in the first place, what we need as a call to action is for parents and guardians to take that first step, and it could be on the way to school when, during drop off, it could be, when you’re taking them to the grocery store, and they’re just walking around the aisles with you, whenever you have the opportunity.

To just chat about something that’s culturally relevant, that is, something that’s very current in teen society today. It’s worth bringing up just to see their familiarity, just to see if they smile or they smirk or they look at you very puzzled, and then that will prompt your next steps.

Laura Higgins: And definitely if there’s a, one of these, most horrific stories that happens, it’s a really tough thing, but hopefully I’m sure that the families and those involved would want everyone to learn from the experience that they’ve had too.

Jordan Shapiro: One thing I want to unpack—what I find interesting about this is that there’s an inherent tension here because I feel like the popular narrative is this idea that social media. Has created this kind of pressure cooker of like normal adolescent social all the teen movie stuff, right the bullying, the mean girls, right?

It’s like the narrative is that social media has made it such a more intense, more amplified pressure cooker.  You know when I think about what you just said about this correlation between suicide, suicidal thoughts, suicide ideation, even attempts and self-bullying. It makes me wonder to what degree, to what degree is that popular media narrative of the pressure cooker real?

And to what degree is that not, is that not real? And it’s actually way more complex than most of us are thinking about it. 

Sameer Hinduja: I agree. It is complex. And of course, we never want to lean too far in one direction or the other when it comes to extreme perspectives. I think it’s important to articulate that many youth who are struggling, they’re able to gravitate online and what they’re finding as they struggle with heavy emotions is that they’re not alone, that many youth have struggled with the same emotions, are struggling with the same emotions. We think about some of our favorite social media platforms and how so many adolescents are posting about mindfulness, about or de-stigmatizing seeking mental health or going to therapy. Figuring out other pro-social and positive ways to cope with those struggles and those heavy emotions. And so again, social media is providing an avenue for that where before, it wasn’t wasn’t possible. And I think the worst thing when you’re an adolescent about struggling is feeling alone. But if you know that others are struggling, maybe they’re in the same boat and they have overcome. 

I think that gives you a little bit of hope and confidence that you can as well. And ideally, if you’re pointed towards those positive coping mechanisms, maybe even some resiliency skills, then perhaps you won’t move in the direction of, again, these dysfunctional methods of coping, such as digital self-harm.

Laura Higgins: On Jordan’s point, I’m thinking about how we grew up in a time when being an adolescent was tough. I can certainly remember some young people that are not here now from when I was growing up because of the pressures and the bullying.

I think it’s a really interesting of the causality and the amplification. Obviously, I work for an online platform, I work for Roblox. We know that tech platforms sometimes are not necessarily the cause of these things, but we have not necessarily always been helpful. Some platforms have been very helpful in trying to help people access help and support when they need them and build those communities that you just mentioned.

What would you say to us as tech platforms? What can we do better? Where should we really be thinking about our approach to cyberbullying? Because. For me, we’re not seeing a huge change. And as much as people, different companies are like, we have this initiative, we have that initiative. I’m not feeling like we’re really moving the needle.

What more can we do? 

Sameer Hinduja: I appreciate the question, Laura. It just demonstrates that you constantly are seeking ways to improve and level up when it comes to what you’re able to offer in terms of products and services to the user base. And I think that humility is, number one, we have to stay completely humble and continue to learn from our user base.

When it comes to digital self-harm, I’m confident that if I have concerns about my child and I reached out to you, you would be able to identify whether the hateful or hurtful posts that they’re receiving are coming from their own IP address. And then maybe we would have a conversation about, you know what, Sameer, this is actually your son, and we’ve got to get to the bottom of why they’re struggling to such a degree that they feel like they need to target themselves. Is it a call for help? Is it some sort of desire for attention? Are they just doing it because They’re bored, and they’re trying to entertain themselves in a very twisted way.

Let’s figure that out, and maybe even some educational resources can be created towards that end in order to assist them. And then big picture when it comes to cyberbullying, whether it’s self-cyberbullying, digital self-harm, or whether you’re being cyberbullied or a person or a user is being cyberbullied.

By somebody else by a peer, obviously, you have various sorts of, filters and blocks in place when it comes to changing problematic words to hashtags and disallowing users to go ahead and send certain messages to go through. You’re also continuing to enhance the offerings with regard to AI being able to proactively prevent problematic content from being shared and unfortunately hurting other people.

Cool. So, I just want those developments to continue. I want more and more resources in terms of automatic and manual content moderation to be devoted in that direction, because otherwise we’re going to have these targets. And especially if they’re young, maybe they don’t know what to do. Maybe they’ve never thought through an action plan.

They might say to you that, yeah, I absolutely know what to do if I’m targeted, but in the moment, they freeze and they get stuck if they’ve never really worked through. So those are two things that come to mind. And then the last one, which I know is top of mind. For many platforms and Laura, maybe you can speak to this specific to Roblox has to do with the feedback loop that users get when they report if it’s extended, if you don’t hear back from a platform within a few days or in a taking a week or longer than the cycle of violence is continuing, you’re continuing to be victimized.

Maybe your best friends are being victimized and that aggressor is never really receiving any sort of deterrence. They’re never really being sanctioned. They’re never really reminded that, okay, what you did will immediately followed a sanction, a consequence. And so, you need to tie them together and not engage in that problematic behavior in the first place.

So that feedback loop has got to be prompt, it’s got to be quick, and the consequences have to be proportionate to the offence. I just need platforms to emphasize it. 

Laura Higgins: I agree 100 percent, and there are so many challenges. I’m so lucky to have you as a friend and a confidant. Sameer, you challenged me in the best ways. And I work for a platform that is an all-ages platform. There are particular complications that happen, particularly in the U.S.- based platforms where once a user is 13, they have all the rights. So, when a parent has concerns, they could contact a platform, but the platform is not legally allowed to share information and how helpful would it be to your point of, could you tell me who they were talking to?

I’m seeing these signals. It would just be classed as it’s a report. Yes. So, I hope that platforms would take it seriously and review. But when it comes to that sharing of information, it’s so limiting, unfortunately, and hopefully we’re not going too depressing on this whole episode, but it is really important to talk about, I am friends, personal friends with bereaved parents whose children have been harmed in one way or another by online platform or the element of that. And what I hear from them is, their perception is that the platforms don’t want to, I have been privileged to be able to help them with their healing of, yeah, there’s the good and bad everywhere, of course.

But actually, sometimes it’s the regulation and policies and stuff out of our control that make it difficult where we’re moving to and I’m starting to see some real positive movement, I think, is that connection and working collaboratively with the policy makers. With the data protection people and also the families and users who need the best.

It should be all about them and their safety, but managing the privacy side as well. That was super serious. I’m going to throw it back to you now, Jordan. 

Jordan Shapiro: Thanks. I guess I want to move into a more general question for you. Sameer. Thinking big picture, I’ll ask the question that I pretty much ask in all of our conversations on some level, which is, how do we understand the difference between what’s a what’s a digital issue?

What’s an issue of digital technology and what’s and what’s just a technological manifestation of normal adolescence, right? And by normal, I don’t mean good, right? We know there’s serious mental health concerns in normal. Adolescents I guess that’s we, some might call that aberrant or what pathology, whatever, the language isn’t important.

You understand the question I’m getting at here, which is, are, are we talking here about issues that are screen ager issues or issues of the adolescent brain with access to technology? The screens, I guess that’s the way to put it. And how should we think about that in a kind of big picture way when we consider all of this and it, as we’ve said many times in this conversation there’s so much in the media that, that, that is fear, that is scary, that is telling.

So, I’m always trying to, for parents’ sake, to help them disentangle that, to understand where the tools. Do need all the things that Laura was just talking about in terms of to create the guardrails in the same way that we have traffic lights on streets to make sure people don’t get hit by cars or where is their actual digital causes or real problems with the digital technology world.

So curious how you think about that and unpacking that. 

Sameer Hinduja: Sure. I’m thinking about an answer. I’m always approaching it with the or through the lens of, okay, how can I serve parents? How can I serve guardians? And they want to be encouraged. They want to be empowered, and they want to be equipped.

Their wheelhouse has to do with raising a child really, and they really don’t have control over what tech companies can do. So, I would rather tech companies continue to focus in on that. They’re going to do so hopefully of their own volition, but also because it’s being mandated by. The federal government.

And so, I, like Laura said, expect to see a lot more progress in recent months and years as we move forward, when it comes to parents, and as they’re thinking about trying to raise a decent human being, I don’t want them to get overwhelmed by, all of the different devices and apps and ways to communicate.

I just want them to focus on empathy. I want them to focus on resilience. I want them to focus on how I can create a moral compass in my child so that they know that there’s a right and that there’s a wrong. Even if they might say there’s a ton of gray area, I bet when they thought about that behavior, they had a piece about it or they had a lack of peace about it.

And how could they become more sensitive to that? Whether it’s their conscience or the ethics that we’ve tried, the ethical code that we’ve tried to build in them or our family values, or Whatever we’re using in our home to direct them along the trajectory that’s healthy and positive, that’s what I think parents are already good at.

That’s what they want to focus in on. So that’s what I try to help them level up in. 

Laura Higgins: And that’s, that’s the best advice, isn’t it? It’s a good person. That’s what we’re trying to build. Resilient and strong and kind and yeah, a good citizen of the world whether it’s online or offline.

I’m going to throw in a careful question that we’ve had this conversation with many of our guests is recently we’ve seen this call of like cell phone bans both in school but also banning kids from social media until they’re a certain age. Where would your stance be on that? Thanks. 

Sameer Hinduja: I feel very strongly about this, so I will try not to get on my soapbox for too long, but I’ll say big picture, we have to be realistic about what is enforceable and what are our youth going to need as they move forward into an information age deeper and deeper, obviously, because our economy and society is built on data. It’s built on information, and they’re going to require certain skills in order to compete in this global workforce.

So, if we have bands and if we have all of this sort of poo-pooing on technology. Unfortunately, I’m concerned that we’re going to fall behind other countries. I’m gonna be concerned about them falling behind other peers who do have access. And I also feel like it’s a very reactive, very punitive measure with which youth are going to very willingly circumvent because it is meeting their social needs.

It is meeting their, educational needs. It is being their communication needs and it’s being their entertainment needs and it’s here to stay. The cat is out of the bag and I’m sure you agree that it’s much better for us to come alongside of them and convey them that it is a tool that if they know how to use responsibly can really help optimize their personal and professional success.

But if they use it irresponsibly, without wisdom, without discretion, without heeding the lessons we’re trying to teach them through so many teachable moments. Then, unfortunately, it’s not going to work out well for them. Yeah, I could go on forever about the topic and let me also quickly say that I do I do feel, I do care so much about the parents and the guardians who are proposing these bills.

I do care about the politicians who do want to see positive change and do want to safeguard youth when it comes to what they deal with and also, of course, enhance their well-being. I just want us to approach it with. a careful look at the science and a careful look at, the realistic possibilities with regard to what we can accomplish amongst this population who are already so deeply embedded in it.

Jordan Shapiro: Yeah, I think we’re all in agreement. And I also just want people to like, look at history books, like bands never work. Whether they’re for adults or whether they’re for kids, whether it’s alcohol, whether it’s technology, whether it’s pornography, it’s never worked. Thank you so much. And it’s got better.

Thanks so much. This is a great conversation. I really appreciate your time. 

Sameer Hinduja: Always a pleasure. Appreciate it as well, Jordan and Laura.