Abstract
The popularity of computer-mediated communication and cyber technology has created many new vices in society that obstruct the development of adolescents. One such vice is cyberbullying, which is an insidious and covert form of bullying. The present paper opts to scrutinise cyberbullying's psychological effects on the victim teenagers of minority communities of a cosmopolitan city. Confirmatory factor analysis, for testing the Psychological Effect of Cyberbullying Scale (PECS) comprising 24 direct item pool, was employed to unfold Mild Psychological Effect Scale (MPES) and Intense Psychological Effect Scale (IPES). Cross validating the initial factor structure was conducted with the help of developing standardised coefficient for the two factor model for PECS. Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficient values are above 0.09 for the items of both the Mild Psychological Effect Scale (MPES) and Intense Psychological Effect Scale (IPES). Based on purposive sampling, the study found that all the items taken for conducting the survey are highly co-related to the psychological impact of the victim teens of the minority community of the cosmopolitan city. So the PECS developed for measuring the effect has significance. Study results also indicate that the PECS can serve as a valuable tool for measuring the mental impact of cyberbullying among teenagers.
Highlights
In the last few decades, the internet has provided an easy opening into the outside world
The findings of this study reveal that the victim teenagers have a problem in trusting others, since the bully is anonymous (Kowalski & Limber, 2007)
The study's primary purpose was to find out the psychological effects of cyberbullying on the victim teenagers of minority communities of a cosmopolitan city using maximum likelihood estimates
Summary
In the last few decades, the internet has provided an easy opening into the outside world. Children and teenagers are getting exposed to this virtual world at an early stage of their life. Their early exposure with little security knowledge is making them leisurely devour of cyber technology. They have the knowledge and skill to manipulate this technology They often lack the judgement of what is right and what is wrong. This can mislead them to the opposing sides of the cyber world. Teenagers sometimes use this technology to oppress or harm others (Usher, 2010). One such effect is cyberbullying (Guidance Report of Welsh Government, 2011), which the adolescents use to hurt peers (Burton, 2014)
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