Horrors of Cyber-Bullying: A Qualitative Study of the Victims of Cyberbullied Adolescents of Pakistan

Abstract

The present study focuses to uncover the psychological impacts of cyberbullying upon adolescents by qualitative interviews conducted through interpretative phenomenological analysis. A number of (N=10) adolescents from both genders were taken as participants to conduct the study. These participants had been taken depending on the severity of their experience and their willingness to contribute to this research. The age range of participants were from 13-19 years. Results of the present study indicated that an increase in psychological distress may lead to suicidal ideation because of cyberbullying victimization. The measures used in this research study were a demographic sheet along with cyberbullying interview questions prepared in light of bullying prevention guide (Ahmad & Jandali, 2014). Themes extracted after the conduct of interviews were the hiding behind the screen, psychological problems stemming from cyber-bullying, bullies hide identity, cyber-bullying is worse than traditional bullying, cyber-bullying events experienced, emotional and psychological consequences for victims of cyber-bullying, common ways of cyber-bullying on social media, internet based technology to help cyber-bullying and avoidance of social media to prevent cyber-bullying. The existing data indicates the dire need to policy development and interventional program to handle the mental health issues among adolescents in Pakistan. It was also concluded that the victimization of cyberbullying is itself one of the major factors of suicidal ideation. Implications are discussed.