A growing awareness of this behaviour in LGBTQ+ people has been highlighted by the LGBT Foundation as digital self-harm. Here at GAY TIMES, we want to unpack what it looks like, where it comes from and how you can help yourselves and those around you to look after your mental wellbeing online.
What is digital self-harm?
The spotlight being placed on digital self-harm is something many people are grateful for, as young people’s access to digital spaces increases year on year. Ofcom shared in a recent report that 99% of 16-24 year olds use the internet at home, meaning that nearly all in that demographic have access to digital and social media where anti-LGBTQ+ narratives are rife.
The act of digital self-harm can be categorised in many ways – as well as being different to other forms of self-harm – because often, people who are digitally self-harming might not start out by meaning to do so.
Simply put, digital self-harm is the idea that, despite its psychological consequences and impact on our mental health, we would still engage with hateful or abusive content online. This behaviour then becomes repetitive, and its impact on our wellbeing even greater. This can include being unable to stop reacting to anti-LGBTQ+ discussion, sending ourselves hate or seeking out anti-LGBTQ+ conversations.
Are there different types of digital self-harm?
There are lots of different ways in which our actions online can become harmful to ourselves, and it’s important that we keep a check on our own digital screen time, as well as our intentions behind engaging with abusive or harmful content.
The LGBT Foundation identifies that there are three main ways digital self-harm can manifest.
LGBTQ+ Phobic Content Checking
This is the act of needing to check social media, websites or blogs that are known to be producing anti-LGBTQ+ content. This is something people often justify to themselves, citing that they want to make the community aware of any planned attacks. Alternatively it could be to alert other people within the community of famous faces or known figures who are saying anti-LGBTQ+ things.
Conflict Seeking
One that many of us may find on platforms such as Twitter and Reddit, is conflict seeking. This is when someone searches for people online that are known to hold views that vehemently go against their own views with the desire and objective to debate these issues. This is often with the intention of changing another person’s mind, or for sticking up for other people online who may be being targeted. This can become harmful to the individual because the person they are debating is often likely to argue back.
Self Cyberbullying
Self cyberbullying is when someone sends hateful or abusive messages to their own social media accounts in order to make it look like other people are sending them harmful messages. These accounts are often fake or randomised accounts that can be made up people or based on real people.
It’s important to note that although this behaviour may sound confusing at first, its origins are not manipulative or to deceive.
Why do people do this?
Many people who engage in digital self-harm don’t realise that they’re doing it. Lots of LGBTQ+ people don’t seek out conflict or engage with anti-LGBTQ+ news with a desire to harm themselves. But this repeated behaviour over time can become something that we end up falling into a rhythm with. It then becomes commonplace to check social media every day, despite its harmful conversations around transness or queerness.
We end up thinking that what we are seeing is normal, and this can lead to internalising anti-LGBTQ+ beliefs or projecting those beliefs onto ourselves and those around us. It affects our mood, our energy levels, our relationships and ultimately our own mental health. It can mean that many LGBTQ+ people feel shameful about their own identity.
As mentioned above, this has the potential to then become something we can’t stop.
The LGBT Foundation shares that young people engaging in this behaviour are often embarrassed, frightened or unsure where to ask for help as they can feel alone in this challenge. Equally, because this news and behaviour is so commonplace amongst people online, it can seem like there isn’t a problem because ‘everyone is doing it’.
Again, it’s important to recognise here that although many of us do engage with anti-LGBTQ+ content online, we aren’t all digitally self-harming by looking at it. A sad reality for LGBTQ+ people is that we will encounter a lot of anti-LGBTQ+ material in our daily lives. The act of digital self-harm is when engaging with this material turns into an act that is hard to stop, or leads to you seeking out places where you know conflict may lie, or sending yourself harmful messages.