Correlation of Minority Status, Cyberbullying, and Mental Health: A Cross-Sectional Study of 1031 Adolescents

Abstract

Adolescent cyberbullying is increasingly prevalent. Depression and suicidal ideation are also common, particularly among minority adolescents and cyberbullied adolescents. Little data exists to establish whether minority cyberbullied adolescents are at greater risk of negative mental health outcomes associated with cyberbullying. This cross-sectional study of 1031 adolescents presenting to an emergency room examines the prevalence of cyberbullying in minority and non-minority populations. Using logistic regression, we compared mental health symptoms between minority and non-minority cyberbullyinginvolved adolescents (accounting for demographic factors), and examined the correlation between use of multiple forms of online technology, minority status, and prevalence of cyberbullying. Sexual orientation was the only demographic factor to strongly correlate with cyberbullying involvement or to correlate with negative mental health symptoms. Increased use of social media platforms also correlated with cyberbullying involvement. This analysis provides a baseline for future work around targeted cyberbullying interventions for minority adolescent populations.

Exploring the Mediating Roles of State and Trait Anxiety on the Relationship between Middle Adolescents’ Cyberbullying and Depression

“…Second, the school setting might have inhibited participants and, therefore, it might have also increased the likelihood of desirable answers. Third, we did not account for other variables that were found to be significant for cyberbullying among middle adolescents, such as difficulties in emotion regulation and loneliness, sexual orientation [ 75 ], empathy and moral disengagement [ 76 ], and several other individual, family, and neighborhood characteristics [ 77 ].…”

Associations Among Trauma Exposure, Callous-Unemotionality, Race or Ethnicity, and Gang Involvement in Justice-Involved Youth

“…To investigate whether race or ethnicity would moderate the paths of the model, we classified youth who identified as participants of color including Latino(a), Black, Native American, Pacific Islander/Native Hawaiian, Asian/Asian American, and biracial/multiracial as “1” and youth who identified as non-Hispanic White as “0.” This method of combining racial or ethnic groups into one participant of color category was utilized because of the limited number of youth who identified as any other group relative to Latino(a). Although this method of classification has limitations, it has also been extensively used in the literature (e.g., Carlson et al, 2015; Duarte et al, 2018).…”

Racial differences in cyberbullying from the perspective of victims and perpetrators.

“…To the degree that this is true, African American youth would not only be at heightened risk for cyberbullying victimization and perpetration, but the effect of such involvement would be expected to be worse relative to White youth (cf. Duarte, Pittman, Thorsen, Cunningham, & Ranney, 2018).…”