The Relationship Between Being Bullied and Addictive Internet Use Among Chinese Rural Adolescents: The Mediating Effect of Adult Attachment

Abstract

Internet addiction among adolescents is an emerging public health issue. The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between being bullied and internet addiction, and further to test the mediating effect of adult attachments on this relationship among Chinese rural adolescents. A total of 1,270 adolescents from three high schools in Henan province were recruited as subjects. Internet addiction was measured by Young’s internet addiction scale. This study showed that the prevalence of being bullied and addictive internet use among the recruited Chinese rural adolescents were 41.97% and 11.34%, respectively. Being bullied was significantly associated with internet addition. Adult attachment was found to mediate the association between being bullied and internet addiction. Higher anxiety attachment and lower close-dependent attachment partially explained the higher risk of internet addiction among the Chinese rural adolescents being bullied. This study suggests that the experience of being bullied can increase the risk of addictive internet use and that this risk can be mediated through adult attachments. This discovery supports the adoption of effective prevention programs to decrease school bullying and to improve adult attachments for adolescents in China and other countries.

School Bullying Victimization and Associated Factors Among School-Aged Adolescents in China

“…Alcohol use was the common individual characteristic associated with relational, sexual, and property victimization, which is consistent with a study conducted among Italian adolescents (Vieno et al, 2011). Playing video games was associated with sexual and property bullying victimization, which also has been reported in previous studies (Guo et al, 202 ;Ybarra et al, 2014). According to routine activities and lifestyles theories, deviant lifestyles may provide a particularly high chance of victimization because adolescents who engage in deviant activities (such as drinking and being addicted to playing video games) are exposed to deviant peers (Nofziger, 2009).…”

“…There are many published studies on bullying victimization in both Western and Eastern countries (Baldry, 2003; Chan & Wong, 2015; Guo et al, 2022; Herráiz & Gutiérrez, 2016; Kim & Kim, 2019; Morales et al, 2019; Obeïd et al, 2020). Researchers have found that there are important differences between Eastern and Western countries in the type of bullying, coping strategies, and attitudes toward bullying, perhaps due to different cultural values and educational systems (Smith et al, 2016).…”

“…Therefore, generalizing Western research results on bullying to China may be culturally limited and not appropriate. On the other hand, most studies on bullying in China have been descriptive and prior researchers have not distinguished between different types of bullying (Chan & Wong, 2015; Guo et al, 2022; Han et al, 2017; Wang et al, 2019; Xu et al, 2020). Our study used an analytical epidemiology case-control study design to explore factors associated with bullying victimization.…”

School victimization and Internet addiction among Chinese adolescents: The mediating roles of life satisfaction and loneliness

“…Some studies also supported the direct and positive link between school victimization and Internet addiction ( Guo et al, 2020 ). A longitudinal study indicated that cyberbullying victimization among Spanish adolescents at T1 positively predicted problematic Internet use at T2 ( Gámez-Guadix et al, 2013 ).…”

Problematische und pathologische Bindungsphänomene im Zusammenhang mit internetbezogenen Störungen

“…Negative Bindungen zu Mutter und Vater waren Prädiktoren für eine Internetsucht, wobei Psychopathologie vor allem in der Bindung zur Mutter interagiert [29]. Unsichere Bindungsmuster sind zudem als Mediatoren in der Beziehung zwischen Bullying und Internetsucht beschrieben [30]. In einer Studie wurde die Entschlossenheit der Eltern als signifikanter Moderator identifiziert, wobei der Effekt dezente Geschlechtsunterschiede zeigte [21].…”