Cyber Harassment and Quality of Life1

Abstract

Research on bullying and harassment in Scandinavia has been going on for several decades, and is appearing in new frameworks and forms since the new categories of "cyber harassment" or "cyberbullying" has been introduced. Bullying is a phenomenon of great importance, as it seems to affect persons negatively in their everyday functioning. We designed a questionnaire on cyber harassment, which was answered by pupils, at five schools in Tromsø (N=878). This questionnaire included a section of questions concerning traditional forms of harassment and bullying, as well as a set of quality of life (QoL) questions. The main questions asked here are: 1) What is the prevalence in percentages of classical bullying and cyberbullying; 2) Are there gender and/or age differences; 3) What percentage of children bullied classically were also cyber-bullied; 4) In what way was the quality of life affected for those that were classically bullied or cyber-bullied? Our main finding is that students who report being cyber-harassed or cyber-bullied, report a significantly lower QoL-score than their non-harassed peers, and thus share the same negative characteristics in relation to quality of life as classical harassment and bullying. Cyberbullying is less common than classical bullying, but it now affects some 3.5% of the pupils, and nearly half of the cyberbullying comes in addition to traditional bullying.

The severe impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on bullying victimization, mental health indicators and quality of life

“…Results from analysis of the entire WiT project period suggested that the prevalence of both traditional and digital bullying decreased year by year. In the first year of the study 10.4% reported being bullied either traditional or digital 46 . In 2017 the prevalence had dropped to 8.1%.…”

Gangguan Siber di Tempat Kerja, Emosi dan Konflik Kerja-Keluarga: Kawalan Emosi sebagai Penyederhana

“…Gangguan adalah satu bentuk pencerobohan tingkah laku (Fernandez et al 2015). Kewujudan teknologi Internet dan media sosial telah membentuk gangguan teknologi yang dikenali sebagai gangguan siber (Thorvaldsen et al 2016). Pelaku gangguan siber bersifat lebih agresif kerana identiti mereka tidak diketahui (Coyne et al 2017;Thorvaldsen et al 2016).…”

“…Kewujudan teknologi Internet dan media sosial telah membentuk gangguan teknologi yang dikenali sebagai gangguan siber (Thorvaldsen et al 2016). Pelaku gangguan siber bersifat lebih agresif kerana identiti mereka tidak diketahui (Coyne et al 2017;Thorvaldsen et al 2016). Gangguan siber adalah keadaan di mana mangsa diganggu, diancam dan dimalukan dengan niat jahat (Alhujailli & Karwowski 2018) sama ada sekali atau berulang kali dan mangsa tidak mampu untuk mempertahankan diri sendiri (Coyne et al 2017;Gardner, et al 2016;Thorvaldsen et al 2016)…”

“…Fenomena tingkah laku yang agresif dalam kalangan pengguna media sosial ini diistilahkan sebagai gangguan siber (Tan 2020;Tenorio & Bjorn 2019). Gangguan siber merupakan satu bentuk pencerobohan secara psikologi yang dilakukan oleh pelaku kepada mangsa melalui peralatan elektronik dan melibatkan hubungan dalam rangkaian yang lebih luas di alam maya (Thorvaldsen et al 2016;Zych et al 2019).…”

Children and adolescents weathering the storm: Resilience in the presence of bullying victimization, harassment, and pandemic lockdown in northern Norway

“…Both bullying victimization and harassment are forms of adversity of great distress, which negatively affect mental health and quality of life in both short and long term (Allison, Roeger & Reinfeld‐Kirkman, 2009; Branwhite, 1994). In Norway close to 30% rapport harassment, 6–10% report bullying at school, and up to 6% report digital bullying (Bakken, 2021; Forsberg & Thorvaldsen, 2022; Thorvaldsen, Stenseth, Egeberg, Pettersen & Rønning, 2016).…”