Incidence and demographic correlates of self-reported cyber-victimization among adolescent respondents

Abstract

Cyber-victimization, understood as the suffering of aggressions through electronic media, is undoubtedly the greatest concern of socio-educational communities. The aim of this study was to assess the incidence of cyber-victimization in adolescents and to analyze the relationship between cyber-victimization and several demographic variables. We administered the Cyber-Victimization Questionnaire and an ad hoc demographic questionnaire to a sample of 866 Compulsive Secondary Education (CSE) students aged 12 to 16 years (M = 13.81, SD = 1.25). The data revealed a percentage of cyber-victimization of 22.18% with a greater presence of verbal-written cyber-victimization. Among the most common actions of cyber-victimization are receiving calls with the intention of annoying or making fun of the victim and sending unpleasant photos or videos through mobile phone or the Internet. Likewise, the variance and post hoc analysis show that personal (gender), family (type of family) and school variables (type of center, course, and academic record) are statistically significant risk factors in cyber-victimization. In conclusion, this study identifies relevant personal, family and school variables to help structure prevention and intervention strategies in cyber-victimization from educational communities.

Keywords

• cyber-victimization, mobile phone, internet, adolescents, quantitative research