European teens who spent a lot of time online on social networks were the ones most likely to report being cyberbullied, researchers found.
The odds of teenagers in Romania, Germany, and Poland having experienced cyberbullying increased when social network sites were used for more than 2 hours a day, reported Kalliope Athanasiou, PhD, of the University of Athens in Greece, and colleagues, in BMC Public Health.
Although teens with no social media participation obviously cannot become victims of cyberbullying, the study's association of time using social media with risk of cyberbullying was far from obvious.
"This is an important finding which challenges past research suggesting that simply having, rather than excessive use of, a social network site profile increases the risk of becoming a victim of cyberbullying," co-author Artemis Tsitsika, PhD, also from the Athens institution, said in a statement.
The authors stated that they wanted to explore differences in demographic and family factors that increase the odds of cybervictimization, "in line with the hypothesis that increased usage is associated with increased online risks."
They performed a cross-sectional, school-based study in seven European countries from 2011 to 2012, comprised of anonymous questionnaires on participants' demographics, Internet use characteristics, school achievement, parental control, as well as the Internet Addiction Test and Achenbach's Youth Self-Report.
The definition of cyberbullying victimization included "emphasis on the elements of hostility or hurtfulness, the repetitiveness of the event and the use of the Internet as the medium of choice," and participants were then asked, "Has someone acted in this kind of hurtful or nasty way to you in the past 12 months on the Internet?"
Overall, data from 12,372 teens (ages 14-17) were included in the questionnaire. About 53% of participants were girls and around 62% were ages 14-15.9.
More than half of adolescents reported using the Internet for more than 2 hours a day and more than a third reported using social network sites for more than 2 hours a day. Romania had the highest portion of students reporting online bullying (37.3%), followed by Greece (26.8%) and Germany (24.3%).
Interestingly, more than three-quarters of adolescents surveyed reported that their parents "often or very often allowed them to visit every site" and 54% said their parents "never or seldom told them to stay on the Internet for a certain time."
"In all cases higher daily use with no monitoring and digital literacy background may lead to teenagers posting private information and meeting strangers online," Tsitsika said.
When examining demographic characteristics, the authors found that girls in the Netherlands were twice as likely to be bullied as boys. In Romania, younger age was a risk factor for online bullying, though the authors stated that reflected "the inconsistent results obtained in the literature."
The authors found that internalizing problems increased odds of cyberbullying in all countries, and that externalizing problems increased odds of online victimization in all examined countries except Germany and Romania. They stated that "the statistical significance of [social network sites] in increasing cyberbullying victimization probability occurred in countries with high rates of cyberbullying, but not in countries with lower rates."
"Educational settings would benefit from integrating [information and communication technologies] education into their curricula," they concluded.
The study had some limitations, including its its cross-sectional design and use of self-report, which may have introduced bias if there was an element of social desirability in responding.0 comments