Teenagers' personal accounts of experiences with digital intimate partner violence and abuse

Relations among Romantic Myths, Offline Dating Violence Victimization and Cyber Dating Violence Victimization in Adolescents

“…It is estimated that between 12% and 56% of adolescents have experienced cyber dating violence victimization [16]. This form of dating violence (DV) is defined as the control, harassment, threats, stalking and abuse of current or former dating partners via technology and social media [4,5,[17][18][19]. Cyber DV includes both behaviors that involve harming victims through direct attacks, e.g., threats, insults or disseminating private information, namely cyber-aggression, and forms of abusive control of victims to monitor their social relationships and what they are doing at any time, namely cyber-control [1,11,18,20,21].…”

“…Easy access to victims, lack of geographical boundaries and the rapid dissemination of victims' denigrating or humiliating information are characteristics of this type of violence that make victims feel increasingly helpless, which negatively impacts their well-being [4,[6][7][8]11,13,[24][25][26]. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) allow prejudicial information and images about victims to quickly spread to a very large audience, constant monitoring of their activity on social networks, and contact with them anytime and from anywhere [14,19,27]. Cyber DV victimization is associated with anxiety, psychological distress, depressive symptomatology and low self-esteem in adolescents [5][6][7]14,19].…”

“…Information and communication technologies (ICTs) allow prejudicial information and images about victims to quickly spread to a very large audience, constant monitoring of their activity on social networks, and contact with them anytime and from anywhere [14,19,27]. Cyber DV victimization is associated with anxiety, psychological distress, depressive symptomatology and low self-esteem in adolescents [5][6][7]14,19]. As online aggressions toward victims can be constant and humiliating online information cannot be eliminated, cyber DV victimization has been suggested to have a more negative impact on victims than offline DV victimization [14,19].…”

“…Cyber DV victimization is associated with anxiety, psychological distress, depressive symptomatology and low self-esteem in adolescents [5][6][7]14,19]. As online aggressions toward victims can be constant and humiliating online information cannot be eliminated, cyber DV victimization has been suggested to have a more negative impact on victims than offline DV victimization [14,19]. Moreover, some adolescents suffer both cyber and offline DV victimization, which increases these negative consequences [16,19].…”

“…As online aggressions toward victims can be constant and humiliating online information cannot be eliminated, cyber DV victimization has been suggested to have a more negative impact on victims than offline DV victimization [14,19]. Moreover, some adolescents suffer both cyber and offline DV victimization, which increases these negative consequences [16,19]. The co-occurrence of traditional forms of DV victimization, such as physical or verbal-emotional victimization and cyber DV victimization in adolescents, has been observed in previous studies [2,6,14,16,28].…”