Risky Social Media Behaviors and the Potential for Victimization: A Descriptive Look at College Students Victimized by Someone Met Online

Abstract

This work uses original survey research to explore the nature of risky behaviors and exposure to potential offenders using social media as a means to initiate personal relationships. During fall 2016, instructors at a large university were recruited to conduct paper and pencil classroom surveys, resulting in a sample of 1310 undergraduate students. Their results first suggest that nearly all sampled students use social media and that half of college students use social media to meet new people. Alarmingly, *1 in 10 students disclosed personal information about themselves within 24 h of making initial contact with someone online. Furthermore, 1 in 20 young people chose to meet in person within 24 h of first contact. Among the survey respondents over 10% reported being a victim of stalking, cyberstalking, or sexual victimization resulting from a perpetrator they initially met on social media. The authors discuss these findings through a lifestyle-routine activity theory lens and explore the implications for understanding victimization risk.

Psychological Correlates of Ghosting and Breadcrumbing Experiences: A Preliminary Study among Adults

“…Dating apps offers access to more likely dates and sexual encounters, allows online communication with potential partners, helps to acquire information about people before meeting them in person, and offers diverse tools to negotiate stages of their love/sex relationships [2,3]. Nevertheless, dating apps also have disadvantages like the gamification of relationships, engaging in risky behaviors (e.g., unprotected sex, disclosing personal information, stalking and cyberstalking, sexual victimization) and being exposed to behaviors like "breadcrumbing", "slow fading", "benching", "haunting", or "ghosting" [4,5]. These behaviors are examples of how people use Internet-mediated communication and dating apps to flirt, initiate, maintain, or end relationships.…”

Internet Entrepreneurship Psychology for College Students and Internet Financial Crimes Prevention

“…The fluke psychology fostered by Internet technology ( Fansher and Randa, 2019 ). Most criminals will be punished for their illegal acts.…”

An Examination of Location-Based Real-Time Dating Application Infrastructure, Profile Features, and Cybervictimization

“…This includes the freedom offered by these applications in terms of one’s online self-presentation (e.g., images and location; Sumter et al, 2017; see also Lauckner et al, 2019; Miles, 2019). Relatedly, Fansher and Randa (2019) found that it is also common that users share their personal information with strangers in a short time through these applications. While such disclosure of personal information on social media in general has been found to increase the risk of cybervictimization (e.g., Reyns et al, 2011; Welsh & Lavoie, 2012), limited research has examined how LBRTDAs specifically may facilitate cybervictimization or how application infrastructure and profile features influence that risk (Phan et al, 2021).…”