Cyberbullying victimization at work: Social media identity bubble approach

Abstract

Cyberbullying at work takes many forms, from aggressive and threatening behavior to social ostracism. It can also have adverse consequences on general well-being that might be even more severe for people whose identities are centrally based on social media ties. We examined this type of identity-driven social media use via the concept of social media identity bubbles. We first analyzed the risk and protective factors associated with cyberbullying victimization at work and then investigated its impacts on well-being. We expected that workers strongly involved in social media identity bubbles would be in the worst position when faced with cyberbullying. Data include a sample of workers from five Finnish expert organizations (N = 563) and a representative sample of Finnish workers (N = 1817). We investigated cyberbullying at work with 10 questions adapted from the Cyberbullying Behavior Questionnaire. Other measures included scales for private and professional social media usage, social media identity bubbles (six-item Identity Bubble Reinforcement Scale), well-being at work, sociodemographic factors, and job-related information. Prevalence of monthly cyberbullying victimization at work was 13% in expert organizations and 17% in the Finnish working population. Victims were young, active users of professional social media and they were strongly involved in social media identity bubbles. Victims who were in social media identity bubbles reported higher psychological distress, exhaustion, and technostress than other victims. Cyberbullying at work is a prevalent phenomenon and has negative outcomes on well-being at work. Negative consequences are more severe among those with highly identity-driven social media use.