Risk Factors Associated with Impact Severity of Cyberbullying Victimization: A Qualitative Study of Adolescent Online Social Networking

Abstract

Cyberbullying victimization is associated with a range of emotional and behavioral outcomes for adolescents. However, previous research has shown that this type of victimization does not affect all individuals negatively. The factors that account for individual differences in reactions to the same online experiences are not well understood. Using a qualitative inductive approach, a set of strong themes relating to factors that either increased the severity of impact of cyberbullying victimization or buffered victims against the impact emerged from interviews with 25 adolescents aged 15-24 years. Themes related to publicity, anonymity of perpetrators, features of the medium, presence of bystanders, and individual level factors were identified as potential influences upon impact severity. The implications of these results for further research and for school/university cyberbullying prevention programs for victims, perpetrators, and bystanders are discussed.

Associations among Different Internet Access Time, Gender and Cyberbullying Behaviors in Taiwan’s Adolescents

“…Cyberbullying among adolescents has emerged as a new form of bullying and has attracted the attention of many researchers in recent years because the ratio of adolescents using the Internet has increased quickly, especially in social networking sites, chat rooms, and instant messaging applications. Adolescents feel a sense of solidarity and identity through the aforementioned applications (Anderson et al, 2014; Dredge et al, 2014; Palladino et al, 2015). Cyberbullying behavior and traditional school bullying have some commonality (Bauman et al, 2013; Waasdorp and Bradshaw, 2015).…”

“…From a traditional point of view, the perpetrators of cyberbullying use online videos, pictures and words in digital form to threaten, ridicule, and insult others. Research suggests that cyberbullying may negatively impact multiple aspects of adolescents mental health includes: depression, social anxiety, suicide, low self-esteem, etc; and behavioral problems include deterioration of relationships between family members and a drop in grades and other negative outcomes (Anderson et al, 2014; Dredge et al, 2014). However, not all victims of cyberbullying have had a negative repercussions (Patchin and Hinduja, 2006; Burgess-Proctor et al, 2009); exploring the consequences of cyberbullying is also rather important.…”

“…Past studies have shown that the effects of cyberbullying are more severe than traditional bullying in four different ways: (Anderson et al, 2014; Dredge et al, 2014) (1) the identity of the perpetrator of cyberbullying is unknown; (2) the number of bullies is greater; (3) the rate of information sharing is faster; (4) the record of bullying lasts forever, much like insulting a person repeatedly. With cyberbullying, there is no direct way for perpetrators to know the effect of their behavior on the victim.…”

“…Therefore, further investigation is necessary. In addition, most prior research of cyberbullying has focused on the factors and the influences it has on mental and physical health (Chang et al, 2013; Anderson et al, 2014; Dredge et al, 2014; Hong et al, 2014) and the differences between cyber and traditional bullying. With the Internet become more common, and people spend more time online, cyberbullying, especially between students, has become an important topic.…”

An Examination of the Relationship between Students Involved and not Involved in Cyberbullying Incidents and Self-Esteem and Extroversion

“…Sanal zorbalık olayları bireylerde birçok farklı sorunlara neden olmaktadır. Dredge, Gleeson ve Garcia (2014) yaptıkları araştırmada sanal zorbalığa maruz kalanların %68'inin duygusal, sosyal ve davranışsal sorunlar yaşadığını belirtmişlerdir. Schneider, O'Donnell, Stueve ve Coulter (2012) yaptıkları çalışmada sanal zorbalığa maruz kalanların %34'ü depresif belirtiler gösterdiğini, %18'inin intiharı düşündüğünü, %24'ünün kendilerine zarar verdiğini, %9'unun intihar girişiminde bulunduğunu ve %3'ünün tıbbı tedavi gördüklerini tespit etmişlerdir.…”