Cyberbullying among a clinical adolescent sample in Turkey: effects of problematic smartphone use, psychiatric symptoms, and emotion regulation difficulties

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Cyberbullying, has concerned professionals due to increased use of media over time and as predicted, this type of bullying is fairly common among adolescents. We aimed to define the prevalence of cyberbullying and cyber victimization, examine relationships between problematic smartphone (SP) use (PSU), psychiatric symptoms and emotion regulation difficulties in a clinical adolescent sample. Also, we aimed to predict risk factors of being an E-Victim and E-Bully. METHODS: One hundred and fifty adolescents have recruited the study. Demographic Information Form, Problematic Mobile Phone Usage Scale, Brief Symptom Inventory, Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale, E-Victimization-E-Bullying Scale were filled out by adolescents. RESULTS: Our results indicated that the prevalence of cybervictimization and cyberbullying were 62.6% and 53.3%, respectively. BEVEB (Both E-Victim and E-Bully) group adolescents were older than NVB (Non-Victim/Bully) groups. Access internet via own SP, PSU, problems in strategies and impulse control and were significantly higher and "lack of awareness" scores were significantly lower in BEVEB group than others. In addition, when compared with OEV (only E-Victims) group, BEVEB group had also higher hostility scores. Logistic regression analysis revealed that high scores of "lack of awareness" and higher E-bullying scores increase the risk of being an E-Victim; and higher scores of hostility and E-victimization and lower scores of "lack of awareness" (in other words being more aware of feelings) increase the risk of being an E-bully. CONCLUSIONS: According to analyses, contrary to our expectations, PSU was important but not an independent predictor of being an E-Victim/E-Bully. Our results also demonstrated an interesting finding: lack of awareness is a risk factor for being an E-victim. We interpreted this result as could not be aware of feelings increase the victimization risk. On the other hand, E-Bullies have higher hostility and victimization while having lower "lack of awareness" scores. It could be speculated that, re-victimization and being aware of hostility feelings could increase the cyberbullying among adolescents. In addition being an E-Bully could be a consequence of being an E-victim and increasing hostility and awareness over time. These results should be reexamined in larger clinical samples.

Childhood Emotional Abuse and Cyberbullying Perpetration Among Adolescents: The Mediating Role of Trait Mindfulness

“…studies conducted with US middle-and high school-aged adolescents showed prevalence rates of CBP to vary between 1 and 41% (Selkie et al 2016) while the prevalence of CBP has been reported as being higher among Turkish adolescents (where the present study was carried out) at 53.3% in a recent study (Gül et al 2018). A large-scale study with adolescents in six European countries (N = 10,930) reported that 21.4% of the participants had been victims of online bullies, and that CBP had major adverse effects on victims including internalizing and externalizing problems, and academic performance (Tsitsika et al 2015).…”

“…A recent empirical study reported that childhood emotional maltreatment (i.e., abuse and neglect) might have a moderate role in higher CBP among university students (Kircaburun et al 2018b). Despite the established possible preventive role of emotion-related personality facets (e.g., self-control, emotion regulation, awareness of feelings) on online and offline bullying (Baroncelli and Ciucci 2014;Gül et al 2018) and the negative relationship between emotional maltreatment and emotional and personality development (Bernstein et al 1994), the mediating effect of emotion-related constructs between emotional maltreatment and CBP has yet to be investigated. Furthermore, despite preliminary empirical evidence for emerging adults, the aforementioned associations are still not clear among adolescents.…”

Profiles of Mobile Phone Problem Use in Bullying and Cyberbullying Among Adolescents

“…Thus, harassment in cyberspace is linked to real-life harassment ( Arab and Díaz, 2015 ; Olweus and Limber, 2018 ; Chen et al, 2019 ). Problematic mobile phone use behavior has been associated with an increased risk of perpetuating roles of cyber-users and cyber victims, especially from decreased awareness of shared information ( Giménez et al, 2015 ; Kwok et al, 2017 ; Martínez-Ferrer et al, 2018 ; Gül et al, 2019 ). Problems in social relationships, due to problematic mobile use and poor emotional and communication adaptation, may be consequent to mobile use being connected to the teenager’s emotions and tensions ( Echeburúa and de Corral, 2010 ; Cía, 2013 ; Serrano-Puche, 2016 ).…”

“…Additionally, adolescents with problematic social media behavior are more involved in aggressive behaviors among the peers ( Martínez-Ferrer et al, 2018 ). Previous research indicates that internet access via a mobile phone has been linked to greater involvement in the role of aggressor and in the role of victimization by cyberbullying regarding those not involved ( Giménez et al, 2015 ; Kwok et al, 2017 ; Gül et al, 2019 ). Time spent communicating with friends, posting information, and browsing on mobile phones is associated with an increased risk of victimization by cyberbullying ( Kwok et al, 2017 ).…”

Emotional Regulation Difficulties, Personality, and Problematic Smartphone Use

“…Two proposed dispositional mechanisms are emotion regulation difficulties and personality. A poor ability to regulate emotional responses to negative experiences appears to be associated with greater problematic smartphone use in adults 6,11,12 and adolescents [13][14][15] . Similarly, broad personality traits, particularly high neuroticism and low conscientiousness, have also been found to predict greater problematic smartphone use [16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23] .…”