Abstract
Over the past two decades, young people’s engagement in online activities has grown markedly. The aim of the present study was to examine the relationship between two specific online behaviors (i.e., cyberbullying perpetration, problematic social media use) and their relationships with social connectedness, belongingness, depression, and self-esteem among high school and university students. Data were collected from two different study groups via two questionnaires that included the Cyberbullying Offending Scale, Social Media Use Questionnaire, Social Connectedness Scale, General Belongingness Scale, Short Depression-Happiness Scale, and Single Item Self-Esteem Scale. Study 1 comprised 804 high school students (48% female; mean age 16.20 years). Study 2 comprised 760 university students (60% female; mean age 21.48 years). Results indicated that problematic social media use and cyberbullying perpetration (which was stronger among high school students) were directly associated with each other. Belongingness (directly) and social connectedness (indirectly) were both associated with cyberbullying perpetration and problematic social media use. Path analysis demonstrated that while age was a significant direct predictor of problematic social media use and cyberbullying perpetration among university students, it was not significant among high school students. In both samples, depression was a direct predictor of problematic social media use and an indirect predictor of cyberbullying perpetration. However, majority of these associations were relatively weak. The present study significantly adds to the emerging body of literature concerning the associations between problematic social media use and cyberbullying perpetration.
Highlights
Over the past two decades, young people’s engagement in online activities has grown markedly
Using the problem behavior theory (PBT), the present study examines the relationship between problematic social media use (PSMU) and cyberbullying perpetration (CBP) and their relationships to social connectedness, general belongingness, depression, and self-esteem among high school and university students
Path analysis showed that PSMU (r = 0.30, p < 0.001; 95% CI (0.27, 0.39)), self-esteem (r = − 0.15, p < 0.001; 95% CI (− 0.23, − 0.06)), and gender (r = 0.21, p < 0.001; 95% CI (0.15, 0.27)) were directly related to CBP
Summary
Over the past two decades, young people’s engagement in online activities has grown markedly. The aim of the present study was to examine the relationship between two specific online behaviors (i.e., cyberbullying perpetration, problematic social media use) and their relationships with social connectedness, belongingness, depression, and self-esteem among high school and university students. Using the problem behavior theory (PBT), the present study examines the relationship between PSMU and CBP and their relationships to social connectedness, general belongingness, depression, and self-esteem among high school and university students. Despite the inconsistency on the definition of problematic social media use (PSMU) (Bányai et al 2017), based on the biopsychosocial theoretical model, PSMU comprises mood changes and total preoccupation of using social media, having negative feelings and psychological symptoms when social media is unavailable, and having negative consequences in real-life areas because of excessive social media use (Bányai et al 2017) Another problem behavior that is related to Internet technology is cyberbullying perpetration (CBP). Digital platforms where individuals are most exposed to or demonstrate CBP are via instant messaging and social media (Whittaker and Kowalski 2015)
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