Can We Forgive if Disrespected by Strangers on Social Media?

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While social media can be a way of pleasant diversion from the boredom and stresses of the world, a dark side is cyberbullying by acquaintances or strangers.

For example, Fossum et al. (2023) surveyed more than 2,000 middle-school adolescents in Norway and reported a relationship between being cyberbullied on social media and feeling unsafe in school. Agustiningsih et al. (2024) examined 10 studies with adolescents and found that being cyberbullied is related to lower self-esteem. Pengoid and Peltzer (2023) expanded the cultural reach between being cyberbullied and mental health by examining 1,877 adolescents in the Caribbean. They found that being only cyberbullied, and not also directly bullied in the school by peers, is associated with 10 different mental health challenges, including loneliness, anxiety, suicidal ideation, current cigarette smoking, and trouble from excessive drinking. The cyberbullying challenge also has been reported in Saudi Arabian adolescents in a sample of 355 youth. As in the other studies cited here, being cyberbullied is associated with negative mental health. For example, 21 percent of the sample considered harming themselves as a result of the online harshness directed toward them. Cyberbullying can go beyond the high school years into college (Lee et al., 2024) and even adulthood (Jenaro et al., 2018). For example, Lee et al. (2024) examined 599 university students in the United States and found a relationship between being cyberbullies and psychological depression.

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One variant of cyberbullying is being a victim of "unknown people online" (Wachs et al., 2021). In this study, there were 5,433 youth (49.8 percent boys with a mean age of 14.12, all within the United Kingdom). Those who reported more "cyberhate" against them spent more time on the Internet and more time associating with "unknown people."

What Works When Treated Deeply Unjustly by Others?

While cognitive behavioral therapy is seen as a popular and effective antidote to harshly unjust treatment, even its founder, Aaron Beck, stated that this often is not sufficient for the deeper psychological healing needed in such a circumstance. He said this on the back cover of Enright and Fitzgibbons (2000): “Anger and the wish to punish a family member or friend for past grievances often remain resistant to the most useful cognitive-behavioral approaches.....Enright and Fitzgibbons show how forgiveness can help to finalize past resentment and allow people to lay their past grievances to rest.”

Research on the psychology of forgiveness shows that it can reduce the resentments caused by unjust treatment with the concomitant amelioration of anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem (Akhtar & Barlow, 2018; Enright & Fitzgibbons, 2015; Yu et al. 2021). Yet, how might this work in an online context when cyberbullying comes from anonymous sources? Can victims of cyberbullying forgive those whom they do not know?

The Challenge With Forgiving Unknown People Online

Since 1993 (Hebl & Enright, 1993), most of the forgiveness intervention studies have centered on family members (Reed & Enright, 2006) and peers (Park et al., 2013). In other words, forgivers know the ones who behaved unfairly. The forgiveness models tend to focus on knowledge of the other by asking such questions as these: What do you think life was like as a child for the one who was unfair to you? Do you think others wounded this person in adolescence? What about during adulthood? Do you think this person was wounded by others so that those wounds now were passed to you?

The point of such cognitive exercises is to begin widening the forgiver’s view of the one who behaved badly, to see this person as more than the injustices perpetrated. Such exercises are meant to soften the heart of the forgiver toward this person. Yet, what if the forgiver has no knowledge of who the injuring person is, as can at times occur with cyberbullying? Does this kind of anonymity render forgiving impossible?

Strategies for Forgiving the Unknown People Online

Our forgiveness model incorporates three kinds of cognitive perspectives toward the one who behaved unjustly: the personal, global, and cosmic perspectives (Enright & Fitzgibbons, 2015). In the personal perspective, we ask those questions above concerning the wounds the other has carried into the hurtful situation. In the case of the stranger or the anonymous person, the personal perspective is not possible. Yet, there is at least one other (the global perspective) and perhaps two others (global combined with the cosmic perspective) available to the forgiver and to the one who may be assisting the forgiver.

In the global perspective, the forgiver focuses on the common humanity of the other and the self. For example, both have unique DNA (with the exception of identical twins) combined with unique environmental experiences (even for identical twins), which make each one special and irreplaceable. Both have worth. Both need adequate nutrition. Both will die one day. The point is to see commonalities rather than only harm and being harmed.

The cosmic perspective is reserved only for those with a transcendent or religious belief. For example, suppose the forgiver is a Jewish person. If so, this question can be posed: Is it true that all people are made in the image and likeness of God (which is found in the first book of the Hebrew Bible, Genesis 1, and is repeated there for emphasis)? If so, then is the offending person made this way? Because of these two cognitive strategies, the global and cosmic, the forgiver can engage in the forgiveness process toward the stranger.

Forgiveness Essential Reads

Reaching the Highest Level of Forgiveness in Relationships

Why We Should Learn to Forgive Ourselves

In the Final Analysis

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Forgiveness as a strategy for cyberbullying does not stop the bullying itself. Other strategies, such as behavioral management and school approaches to creating norms against bullying, are needed for that. What forgiveness does is to go after the effects of cyberbullying, such as resentment, anxiety, and depression, which can last for years. Forgiveness offers the bullied person a way out of the inner discontent that can settle into the human heart following the unjust act. Even if the bullying does not stop, the victim of the bullying now has an approach to quiet the toxic inner effects of that bullying, thus getting one’s life back, including liking oneself again. Those who bully seek power over others. Forgiveness breaks this power and releases the victim from an emotional prison.