Experts warn against social media trolls after Ronaldo gaffe
Cristiano Ronaldo's faux pas during his grand Al Nassr Club unveiling earlier this week is now the stuff of viral legends on social media — the football star mistakenly said “come to South Africa” instead of “Saudi Arabia” — but psychology experts believe that the trolling that inevitably followed can have a deep negative impact on anyone, whether they are celebrities or ordinary people.
With the fame that the Portuguese star has, all eyes are on him and so the matter will not be laughed off as mere slip of the tongue as it may have been for an ordinary person. Almost immediately after the gaffe, the Internet went wild with comments, sarcastic jabs, and ridicule. This cruel bashing that comes with celebrity status could have a devastating impact on an individual's mental health, an expert in Dubai told Khaleej Times.
“There are things like anonymity, the apparent consensus in comments,
so we feel like we're just agreeing with everyone else, which is not a fair representation of a general consensus on the matter. All these features make it tempting and very easy to be quite cruel and not sympathetic to other people,” said
Dr Kirin Hilliar, assistant professor of psychology at Heriot-watt University Dubai, and psychologist at Open Minds Centre in Barsha Heights.
She said that according to psychology research, it takes three positive comments to balance out every
piece of negative criticism a person gets. “We are affected by people's harsh words — and so perhaps we should think 'am I lifting people up rather than pulling people down. Am I treating people the way I want to be treated?'” the expert added.
After the pandemic, which has created global trauma, there's much need for social media users to be consciously spreading more love than hate, according to Aditi Nath, mental health practitioner and cognitive training director.
"If human contact becomes digital and that virtual space gets filled with trolls, then people's entire well-being and outlook will become negative as well. This will lead to a domino effect, and the consequences on the other end will be severe. This will increase the mental health problems in the world,” she explained.
She said trolls act the way they do because of the lack of accountability and the level of anonymity. “If they want to be malicious or disruptive, they can. A lot of trolls want some kind of recognition and power,” she said, adding that if someone has social anxiety, they will perceive any negative thing that they did to be even worse — they will catastrophise.
Dr Hilliar added: “If this gets reinforced by negative comments that can be mentally damaging. If you're self-assured and with no social anxiety, then it will not have an impact. It's not about a seemingly innocuous comment — it's the build-up of the millions of comments and articles.”