May 04, 2021 20:00:00

Studies show that social media addiction is likely to be associated with 'cyberbullying'

A study of teenagers found that young people with 'social media addiction' who couldn't stop using social media were more likely to be involved in

cyberbullying. It was. From this result, experts say, 'It is important to deal with social media addiction before something happens to prevent cyberbullying.'

Understanding Adolescent Cyberbullies: Exploring Social Media Addiction and Psychological Factors: Journal of Child and Adolescent Counseling: Vol 7, No 1
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/23727810.2020.1835420

Social media addiction linked to cyberbullying
https://news.uga.edu/social-media-addiction-linked-to-cyberbullying/

With the spread of the Internet and SNS, many problems of cyberbullying have been reported, so the research team of Amanda Giordano and others who are studying addiction and counseling at the University of Georgia in the United States is in the United States. We conducted a survey of young people in the United States.

The survey targeted 428 adolescents aged 13 to 19 years. Of the 428, 214 (50%) were female, 210 (49.1%) were male, and 4 (0.9%) were others. As a result of the research team's analysis of the relationship between the actual Internet usage of the subjects and cyberbullying, it was found that 'younger people who use the Internet for a long time are at higher risk of cyberbullying.' The average Internet usage time of the target people exceeds 7 hours a day, and in some cases it is used for a maximum of 12 hours or more a day.

There are various forms of cyberbullying that emerged from the survey, such as personal attacks, harassment, discriminatory acts, dissemination of defamatory information, spoofing, dissemination of personal information, social exclusion from the community, and net stalking. I did.

Giordano commented on this result: 'Some people do cyberbullying online because they don't get retaliation anonymously. The scary part of cyberbullying is that it's different from normal bullying. Because I can't see it, I know how my bullying is hurt and I don't have a chance to convert. '

Also, regarding the cause of spending nearly half of the day on the Internet and SNS, 'I am hungry for it even when I am not using social media, and I use social media even if I know that it has an adverse effect.' It can be said that they are in a situation of 'social media addiction', which causes children to become exhausted during the day due to staying up late, resulting in poor school performance, clashes with their families, and regrettable behavior. I experience things like doing things online, but I still continue to use social media. '

In the survey, in addition to 'high tendency to be addicted to social media' and 'long internet usage', 'male' was also a predictor of involvement in cyberbullying. I know. This seems to be consistent with past research results that aggressive behavior is often dominated by men.

Based on these findings, Giordano told educators in the field of education, 'When a school counselor or clinician witnesses bullying, he investigates not only bullying but also the relationship with social media to deal with social media addiction. In addition, it is necessary to raise awareness that games and social media cause addiction, and to prevent social media addiction through education for children will prevent online bullying. It will be important above. '