Parental Supervision: Predictive Variables of Positive Involvement in Cyberbullying Prevention

Collisions and Perceptions of Cyberbullying: Comparison of Intergenerational Experiences

With regard to negative consequences, cyberbullying is recognized as one of the most traumatic types of cyber aggression. The aim is to study the specific features of adolescents and youth's cyberbullying experience in the role of an aggressor, victim or bystander, as well as awareness on the part of parents of adolescents. A total of 3395 adolescents, youth and parents filled out specially designed questionnaires. Older adolescents turned out to be at higher risk of cyberbullying. In two-thirds of cases, cyberbullying is related to real-life incidents. Aggressors are motivated by domination and entertainment, primarily employing strategies of social exclusion, harassment and denigration. As victims of cyberbullying, younger adolescents turn to their parents and friends for social support, whereas older adolescents and young adults are more likely turn to their peers. In the role of a bystander, almost half of younger adolescents and about a third of older adolescents and young adults choose the prosocial strategy of protecting a victim. The parents often underestimate the experience of encountering cyberbullying or find it difficult to assess such experience. The identified risk groups and strategies and the lack of parents' awareness are important to take into account when drawing up cyberbullying prevention programs.

Reactions of adolescent cyber bystanders toward different victims of cyberbullying: the role of parental rearing behaviors

BACKGROUND

Group-based situations are common settings for cyberbullying, making bystander responses crucial in combating this issue. This study investigated how adolescent bystanders respond to various victims, including family members, friends, teachers, and celebrities. This study also examined how different parenting styles influenced children's cyber bystander involvement.

METHODS

This study employed data from a cross-sectional school survey covering 1,716 adolescents aged 13-18 years from public and vocational schools in China collected in 2022. Logistic regression analyses were conducted to measure demographic characteristics, cyberbullying experiences, and parental rearing behaviors in predicting bystander reactions.

RESULTS

The findings showed that middle school students preferred to "ask for help" while high school students tended to choose "call the police" when witnessing cyberbullying incidents. Bystanders growing up with parental rejection and overprotection, having previous cyberbullying victimization experiences, where the victims were disliked by them, exhibited fewer defensive reactions.

CONCLUSIONS

This study has implications for future research and practices involving parental involvement in cyber bystander interventions, which could provide implications for future practice in designing specific intervention programs for cyberbullying bystander behavior. Future research and interventions against cyberbullying may provide individualized training including parents' positive parenting skills and parent-child interactions.

Parental Attitudes on Social Media Monitoring for Youth: Cross-Sectional Survey Study

Background

Online environments dominate the daily lives of American youth and pose evolving challenges to their health and well-being. Recent national poll data indicate that social media overuse, internet safety, and online bullying are among parents' top child health concerns, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. While parents are uniquely positioned to help youth navigate social media, their attitudes on monitoring media use may be impacted by a myriad of personal and family factors.

Objective

This study aimed to examine factors associated with parental attitudes about monitoring social media use among youth.

Methods

Data were analyzed from the Voices of Child Health in Chicago Parent Panel Survey, administered to parents over the web and by telephone. Parents with at least 1 child aged ≥11 years responded to questions about bullying and social media monitoring from May to July 2020. The primary outcome was their response to the following question: "Do you think parents should monitor their children's use of social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram?" Bivariate analyses and multivariable logistic regression were used to examine parental agreement with frequent social media monitoring and concerns about bullying, adjusted for sociodemographic characteristics. Analyses were weighted to represent the parent population of Chicago.

Results

Among 1613 survey respondents, the analyzed sample included 808 parents with at least 1 child aged ≥11 years. Overall, 62.9% (n=566) of parents agreed with frequent parental monitoring of their children's social media use. Compared with parents aged ≤35 years, parents who were >35 years old were significantly less likely to agree with frequent social media monitoring (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 0.45, 95% CI 0.25-0.81). Parents expressing a high level of concern regarding the effects of bullying were more likely to agree with frequent monitoring of youth social media (aOR 2.15, 95% CI 1.24-3.73).

Conclusions

Parents' personal characteristics and concerns about bullying may influence their attitudes toward monitoring social media use among youth. Given the potential impact of these attitudes on parental monitoring behaviors and the subsequent health impact on youth, pediatricians should consider these factors when counseling about bullying and social media. Child health professionals can support families in developing a safe media use plan that fits family circumstances.

Prevalence and related risks of cyberbullying and its effects on adolescent

BACKGROUND

Cyberbullying is becoming common in inflicting harm on others, especially among adolescents. This study aims to assess the prevalence of cyberbullying, determine the risk factors, and assess the association between cyberbullying and the psychological status of adolescents facing this problem in the Jazan region, Saudi Arabia.

METHODS

A cross-sectional study was conducted on 355 students, aged between 12-18 years, through a validated online questionnaire to investigate the prevalence and risk factors of cyberbullying and assess psychological effects based on cyberbullying questionnaire and Mental Health Inventory-5 (MHI-5) questions.

RESULTS

The participants in this study numbered 355; 68% of participants were females compared to 32% were males. Approximately 20% of the participants spend more than 12 h daily on the Internet, and the estimated overall prevalence of cyberbullying was 42.8%, with the male prevalence slightly higher than females. In addition, 26.3% of the participants were significantly affected in their academic Performance due to cyberbullying. Approximately 20% of all participants considered leaving their schools, 19.7% considered ceasing their Internet use, and 21.1% considered harming themselves due to the consequences of cyberbullying. There are essential links between the frequency of harassment, the effect on academic Performance, and being a cyber victim.

CONCLUSIONS

Cyberbullying showed a high prevalence among adolescents in the Jazan region with significant associated psychological effects. There is an urgency for collaboration between the authorities and the community to protect adolescents from this harmful occurrence.

Cyberbullying in COVID-19 Pandemic Decreases? Research of Internet Habits of Croatian Adolescents

Online contacts and other activities on the Internet came into focus given the increased use during the COVID-19 pandemic. The online environment is a setting for problematic Internet use, including cyberbullying, and research so far shows that inclusion in cyberbullying depends on the amount of screen time. Increases in screen time during the pandemic could affect the growth of the prevalence rates of children’s involvement in cyberbullying. The aim of this paper is to compare the Internet habits, cyberbullying and parental role in children’s online activities before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the use of the Internet increased due to online classes and implemented measures to prevent the spread of the infection. The Institute of Public Health of Split-Dalmatia County conducted a quantitative online survey of Internet habits and problematic Internet use in two waves in 2017 and 2020 with adolescents from 12–18 (N2017 = 536; N2020 = 284). Research included adherence to ethical standards of research with children. An online activity questionnaire for children, a questionnaire of parental behaviors and the European Cyberbullying Intervention Project Questionnaire—ECIPQ were used. The results of the research point out that cyberbullying rates in the pandemic decreased. The results show that the cumulative effect of parental monitoring is medium with approximately 5% of explained variance for experiencing and 6% for committing violence. The similar set of predictors is statistically significant in both regressions. Parental actions of monitoring applications, informing children and monitoring search history are identified as protective factors for committing or experiencing cyber violence. These findings are important for understanding the effect of the general digitization of society, which leads to an extensive increase in the use of online content and various digital tools, and the role of the parents, especially as protective potential for cyberbullying among children.

Digitally Mediated Parenting: A Review of the Literature

The field of digital parenting is an emergent and dynamic area of research. This paper presents a structured literature review of research papers published between 2016 and 2021 which report empirical studies of parenting in the online space. Studies were sourced from Scopus and Web of Science using combinations of parent*/father/mother AND engage*/involve*/participat* AND online/digital*/virtual. A corpus of 144 papers were subjected to a first round of analysis, which resulted in the identification of two main clusters: Digital Parenting (Digi-P) and Digital Parental Involvement in Schooling (Digi-S). The first of these, constituting 92 papers, was the focus of a thematic analysis which is reported in this review. This review analysis is informed by theories of mediation in general, and parental mediation specifically. It finds that restrictive mediation was the most commonly reported parental approach to managing children’s online activities; that child age, gender, and vulnerability and parents’ ICT knowledge and experience impact on parents’ mediation practices; that children and parents have different perspectives and knowledge about children’s online activities; that parents’ online activities also impact on their children; and that parenting at a distance is supported by digital tools.