Comparison of Cyberbullying before and after the COVID-19 Pandemic in Korea.

So Young Shin,Yeon-Jun Choi

doi:10.3390/ijerph181910085

Abstract

Because of the implementation of social distancing measures following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, face-to-face interaction has plummeted, which has resulted in the prolific use of social networking services (SNS) and increased activity in the cyberspace environment. This is especially true for teenagers and young adults with the shift to online classes in the education sector, which has increased the chances of being exposed to cyberbullying. This study attempts to determine a strategy for counteracting cyberbullying in the post-COVID-19 era by identifying the factors that have contributed toward greater aggression by adolescents in South Korea in 2020 when the spread of COVID-19 was at its height. To achieve this, we employed the Cyberbullying Circumstance Analysis dataset from the Korea Communications Commission for the time frame of between 2019 and 2020, with 4779 and 4958 participants, respectively. The causes and effects that led to cyberbullying were investigated using binary logistic regression analysis. By reviewing the research data targeted towards Korean adolescents, our analysis found that the average age of those who engage in cyberbullying decreased in 2020 compared to 2019. In addition, cyberbullying awareness at school and the school’s capability of controlling it influenced the number of cyberbullies from a statistical grounding, which could be found only in the 2020 dataset. An approach to establishing policies in schools to contain preemptive measures and increase cyberbullying awareness has been proposed to prevent such mishaps in the post-COVID-19 era.

Highlights

We compared and analyzed the various factors that had an effect on cyberbullying perpetrator experiences before and after COVID-19 with regard to South Korean adolescents
The cyberbullying perpetrator experience rate could be regarded as a decrease, but previous studies, [15,16,17] consistently suggest that cyberbullying perpetration and victimization may overlap; the relation between perpetration and victimization experiences should be considered
Considering the 2020 dataset with regard to the educational stage, it was found that the perpetrator experience had decreased in the case of middle school and high school students, but was fairly constant for elementary school students

Summary

Introduction

In an effort to stem the widespread transmission of COVID-19, the Korean government implemented social distancing measures, including restrictions on social gatherings and events and the expansion of work-from-home policies. This resulted in an inverse relationship between real life and cyberspace interactions, with a decrease in the former and an increase in the latter. Another ramification of a physically distant society is the elevated importance of cyber platforms and digital media, which has spurred their utilization by journalists as well as in the social and economic sectors. Various negative consequences have appeared and are increasing from the acceleration of the information era, including cyber-ostracization, verbal abuse, personal information leaks, and defamation [1,2,3,4]

Methods

Results

Conclusion