Coping Strategies and Anxiety and Depressive Symptoms in Young Adult Victims of Cyberstalking: A Questionnaire Survey in an Italian Sample

Abstract

Aims: In the last decade, the use of smartphones, computers and devices has progressively increased, and prolonged use of technology and the internet has generated new arenas (and tools) for victimization. The first aim of this study was to analyze the use of coping strategies in young adult self-declared victims of cyberstalking. The coping strategies were categorized as proactive behavior, avoidance tactics and passivity. To better understand these strategies, they were analyzed in light of the experience of victimization in terms of incurred misconduct. The second aim was to analyze the coping strategies and the consequences (in terms of depression and anxiety) that occurred in victims; a comparison was made between males and females. Methods: A self-administered questionnaire was distributed to over 433 young adults living in Italy. The questionnaires were filled out by 398 (92%) subjects, 41% males and 59% females. Their ages ranged from 18 to 30 years (M = 23.5, SD = 2.76). Respondents took part on a voluntary basis and did not receive any compensation (or extra credit) for their participation. Results: Findings from this investigation confirmed that among victims, females were more prone than males to experience cyberstalking (respectively, 65% and 35%), with females experiencing a higher percentage of more than one form of cyberstalking behavior than males. Young adult male victims used the internet principally for online gaming, and for this activity, they experienced more cyberstalking behavior than females. In most cases, the perpetrator was a male, and the victim–cyberstalker relationship was a friendship or an acquaintance. For the coping strategies adopted, the findings indicated that the victims were more prone to use avoidance tactics than proactivity behavior and passivity strategies. Young adults involved in this investigation mainly used avoidance tactics to cope with the stressful situation, which implies that they preferred to decrease the use of the internet or stop online contact than collect evidence and try to contact and reason with the cyberstalker or increase the misuse of alcohol of psychotropic substances. Moreover, females were less prone to use proactive behavior than expected. Our findings suggested that males were more prone than females to adopt passivity strategies, while females were more prone to adopt avoidance tactics. Moreover, the data showed that proactivity behavior was adopted more in the case of online contacts and online identity fraud, while passivity strategies were adopted in the case of online threats. Conclusion: Findings from this investigation show the importance of improving the knowledge about the coping strategies that could be suggested to victims and the impact on their psychological health.

The Relationship between Personal Variables and Perceived Appropriateness of Coping Strategies against Cybervictimisation among Pre-Service Teachers

“…Among adults, previous victimisation can also lead to difficulties in employing effective coping strategies [100]. In young adult victims of cyberstalking, women had a tendency to use avoidance coping strategies [101]. Given the contradictory results of previous studies, we expect past experiences of bullying and cyberbullying to be related to perceptions of the appropriateness of coping strategies but given the mixed results we make no predictions about the direction of this relationship.…”

Online Harassment and Hate Among Media Professionals: Reactions to One’s Own and Others’ Victimization

“…We measured the recommended countermeasures with a list of 15 potential reactions to the attack. Participants were asked to assess how recommendable each of the countermeasures was, using a Likert-type scale ranging from 1 “not at all recommended” to 7 “highly recommended.” The list was based on the coping with cybercrime inventories used in previous studies on the topic (Begotti et al, 2020; Sticca et al, 2015; Wachs et al, 2020). The list covered five major approaches: assertive responses (e.g., “Report the offense to the police”), technical countermeasures (e.g., “Report the perpetrator to site administrators”), retaliation (e.g., “Respond with a similar message”), avoidance (e.g., “Reduce the use of social media”), and ignoring (e.g., “Try not to think about what happened”).…”

“…They were presented with a list of 13 possible reactions and asked to choose whether they reacted in a given way (0 = no, 1 = yes). The list was based on the coping with cybercrime inventories used in previous studies on the topic (Begotti et al, 2020; Sticca et al, 2015; Wachs et al, 2020). To reflect the focus of this study, these reactions were first categorized into two categories: active reactions and other types of reactions.…”

Brands as personal narratives: learning from user–YouTube–brand interactions

“…This data-derived notion of healthy YouTube usage is new to the literature otherwise devoted to listing negative psychosocial outcomes of social media usage (see Jang et al 2008 ; Karahanna, et al 2015 for notable exceptions). For instance, much is known about negative effects of social media usage including anxiety and fatigue (Malik et al, 2020 ), narcissism (Reyes et al, 2021 ), celebrity worship (Zslila, et al 2018 ) and cyberstalking (Begotti, et al, 2020 ). While the deleterious behaviors associated with YouTube, and addiction to YouTube deserve investigation, our study points to triggering of positive feelings; i.e., a sense of freedom, security, gaining focus, understanding and connectedness with the world, and a ‘feeling good about myself.’ YouTube usage emerges as therapeutic; it alleviates social dread; i.e., all social media engagement may not align with negative psychology, or reflect pathologies that deserve treatment and intervention.…”