Commentary
“Ghosting,” the practice of ending a relationship suddenly, and without any explanation, cutting off all forms of communication with another person, is very costly.
Analysts at SOCi, Inc., a U.S. marketing platform, recently published a report outlining the many ways in which retailers are “ghosting” customers and how this practice is costing the country billions of dollars. Retailers, according to the report, now “ghost” more than “half of all customers online when they give feedback, ask questions or leave reviews,” thus resulting in a rather staggering $2.4 billion annual loss for the country’s retail industry.
Outside of the business world, “ghosting” is costly in other ways. It causes real psychological harm. Interestingly, females are far more likely—150 percent more likely, to be specific—to ghost than males. “Ghosting” is best viewed as a form of relational aggression, or alternative aggression, an insidious, manipulative way of inflicting pain on another human being. Ghosting is a destructive practice that leaves victims feeling confused and upset.
From an emotional perspective, as the clinical psychologist Leigh W. Jerome recently pointed out, being ghosted triggers feelings of vulnerability and doubt. Moreover, added Jerome, ghosting also affects people at a physiological level, by depleting neurotransmitters and activating abandonment and rejection wounds. Ghosting also appears to activate the very same neural pathways as physical pain.
For those who think that ghosting is a harmless activity, the results of a study by European and U.S. academics suggest otherwise. Ghosting, according to the researchers, is, first and foremost, “an indirect form of relationship termination.” It’s cold, abrupt, and quite often brutal. The researchers found that those who reported ghosting someone in the past scored higher than those who didn’t in both Machiavellianism, a personality trait intimately associated with deceit and manipulation, and psychopathy, a personality trait defined by a lack of empathy and sometimes ruthless behavior.
Besides ghosting, psychopathy also plays a significant role in the act of cyberbullying, a problem that’s getting worse with each year that passes. Females are three times more likely to be cyberbullied than males; they’re also more likely to be perpetrators of cyberbullying. Examples of cyberbullying include harassment (using group chats to target a specific individual, for example) and impersonation (such as by making a false account). The effects of cyberbullying are devastating. Victims are at an increased risk of developing social anxiety, having suicidal thoughts, and engaging in suicidal behaviors. Teen suicides are increasing, and cyberbullying is playing a significant role in fueling the crisis.
Some analysts view cyberstalking as a form of cyberbullying. Although many men engage in acts of cyberstalking—another serious problem that is on the rise—women are far more likely to cyberstalk a “current, former, or potential” lover, according to psychologist Arash Emamzadeh.
An increasing number of females are committing acts of cybercrime, including phishing, identity theft, internet fraud, and sextortion, a form of blackmail in which a person threatens to share a lewd image or video of an individual who refuses to give in to their demands.
What’s going on? Why are so many females carrying out so many cold, vindictive acts?
In recent times, as I have shown before, the line separating males from females has become increasingly blurry. So too has the line separating traditionally male behaviors and traditionally female behaviors. Today, women are just as likely as men to suffer from alcoholism and to be heavily tattooed. They are just as likely to suffer from video game addiction. Women are more likely to be perpetrators of intimate partner violence than they were a couple of decades ago. Today, rather incredibly, one-third of domestic abuse victims in the UK are men. Women are now more likely than men to cheat on a romantic partner.
This didn’t use to be the case. Couple all of the above trends with the anonymous, impersonal nature of online environments (the “online disinhibition effect”), and you start to realize why an increasing number of females are carrying out immoral, sometimes criminal, acts. Although males are considerably more likely to engage in acts of visible, physical aggression, females are more likely to engage in the aforementioned relational aggression. Quite often, this involves using a covert set of devious tactics to destroy a person’s reputation (gossiping, posting harmful content online, etc.).
In many ways, the internet has been a blessing. Without it, you couldn’t read this article. However, as is clear to see, it has also been a curse.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
