Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2020 Aug-Dec:2:100029.
doi: 10.1016/j.chbr.2020.100029. Epub 2020 Sep 28.

Has the COVID-19 pandemic affected the susceptibility to cyberbullying in India?

Ojasvi Jain  1 , Muskan Gupta  1 , Sidh Satam  1 , Siba Panda  1
Affiliations

Has the COVID-19 pandemic affected the susceptibility to cyberbullying in India?

Ojasvi Jain et al. Comput Hum Behav Rep. 2020 Aug-Dec.

Abstract

Owing to the COVID-19 induced lockdown in India, most people's internet activity surged, leading to an expected increase in the rate of cybercrimes. This research focuses on analyzing whether the factors significant in cyberbullying susceptibility changed with the lockdown. The study was conducted by surveying 256 students before the pandemic, in October 2019, and 118 students during the lockdown, in June 2020. This included questions about the respondents' demographics, online presence, experience with offline bullying, perception of other's opinions, and the instances of cyberbullying that apply to them. The results showed factors important in both timespans, namely (i) experience with offline bullying; (ii) individuals' perceptiveness to others' opinions; (iii) frequency of social media posts. Additionally, in the period before lockdown, factors namely (i) tendency to interact with strangers online; (ii) whether they've started a relationship online (iii) hours spent on social media; were found significant. Conversely, during the lockdown, additional distinct factors namely (i) being opinionated on public platforms; (ii) preference of Instagram; (iii) preferred gaming platform; (iv) number of games played; (v) sexual orientation; (vi) age were significant. With the change in variables in the two timespans, we can conclude that the pandemic has affected our susceptibility to cyberbullying.

Keywords: Coronavirus; Cyberbullying Susceptibility; Data Analysis; Statistical Inferences.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Research Methodology followed.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Flow of the survey circulated among the target group.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Theoretical framework.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Al-Rahmi W.M., Yahaya N., Alamri M.M., Aljarboa N.A., Kamin Y.B., Moafa F.A. A model of factors affecting cyber bullying behaviors among university students. IEEE Access. 2018;7:2978–2985.
    1. Anderson C.A., Shibuya A., Ihori N., Swing E.L., Bushman B.J., Sakamoto A., et al. Violent video game effects on aggression, empathy, and prosocial behavior in Eastern and Western countries: a meta-analytic review. Psychol. Bull. 2010;136(2):151. - PubMed
    1. Beckman L., Hagquist C., Hellström L. Does the association with psychosomatic health problems differ between cyberbullying and traditional bullying? Emot. Behav. Difficulties. 2012;17(3–4):421–434.
    1. Camacho S., Hassanein K., Head M. International Conference on HCI in Business. Springer; Cham: 2014, June. Understanding the factors that influence the perceived severity of cyber-bullying; pp. 133–144.
    1. Chang F.C., Chiu C.H., Miao N.F., Chen P.H., Lee C.M., Huang T.F., et al. Online gaming and risks predict cyberbullying perpetration and victimization in adolescents. Int. J. Publ. Health. 2015;60(2):257–266. - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources