Characterizing Cyberbullying among College Students: Hacking, Dirty Laundry, and Mocking

Abstract

Bullying behaviors occur across the lifespan and have increasingly migrated to online platforms where they are known as cyberbullying. The purpose of this study was to explore the phenomenon of cyberbullying among college students. Participants were recruited for focus groups through purposeful sampling, including recruitment from groups traditionally at risk for bullying. Focus groups discussed views and perceptions of cyberbullying on campuses. Groups were led by a trained facilitator and were audio recorded and manually transcribed. The constant comparative approach was used to identify themes and representative quotations. The 42 participants had an average age of 19.2 (SD = 1.2), 55% were female, 83% were Caucasian. Three themes emerged from the data: (1) lack of agreement on a definition of cyberbullying, but consensus on three representative scenarios: hacking, dirty laundry and mocking; (2) concerns with translating definitions of traditional bullying to cyberbullying; (3) opinions that cyberbullying may manifest differently in college compared to younger adolescents, including increased potential for long-term effects. College students were not in agreement about a theoretical definition, but they could agree upon specific representative instances of cyberbullying. Future studies could consider using common case examples or vignettes of cyberbullying, OPEN ACCESSSocieties 2014, 4 550 or creation of developmentally representative definitions by age group.

Cyberbullying

“…Lund and Ross (2016) concluded that certain students in college may face biases and aggression online due to their minority status. Among college students, cyberbullying often involved romantic relationships, including break-ups and revenge (Crosslin & Goldman, 2014; Kota, Schoohs, Benson, & Moreno, 2014; Rafferty & Vander Ven, 2014). These studies noted that anonymity plays a large role in cyberbullying on college campuses.…”

Cyberbullying victimization: Do victims’ personality and risky social network behaviors contribute to the problem?

“…For example, aggressive behavior is typical of bullying but cyberbullying actions can be passive although still hurtful. Like bullying, cyberbullying involves behaviors which are intended to hurt or publicly shame another individual, but some can be unintended, like a joke that goes too far, or involve what might be viewed as excessive/annoying behavior (Kota, Schoohs, Benson, & Moreno, 2014;Slonje & Smith, 2008). Also, without the constraints of time and space, cyberbullying actions can occur in front of larger virtual audiences with the support of a range of media such as photos or videos, and, by going viral, can be unintentionally repeated through shared information.…”

Cyberbullying Among Adolescents: Stakeholder-Driven Concept Mapping Approach

“…Within this definition, 4 different types of bullying behavior are commonly identified: physical, verbal, relational, and damage to property [6]. Observational studies have shown that the different forms of bullying of youths may overlap [8,9]. Within the CDC definition, cyberbullying is considered bullying by digital electronic means.…”