Digital Abuse: Awareness is Preparedness

Technology allows us to stay connected. Whether you are re-connecting with a lost friend from elementary school, video chatting with a partner that is far away, or making new connections with people that you’ve never met, technology allows us to reach out and touch people in ways that would have been impossible before these advancements.¹ Even though many of us spend a lot of time on our phones and computers, digital abuse isn’t as widely-known as it should be. Part of the reason for that is because it’s so interwoven with the other kinds of abuse that you might have heard about — like physical, sexual, emotional, financial, and verbal — that it’s not often singled out. It’s unlikely that someone will experience digital abuse without also experiencing another kind of abuse, but digital abuse itself is very serious and can be detrimental to a person’s wellbeing.²