ارتکاب و قربانی شدن مزاحمت سایبری در میان نوجوانان در هنگ کنگ

Cyberbullying is a growing concern worldwide. Using a sample of 1917 secondary adolescents from seven schools, five psychometric measures (self-efficacy, empathy level, feelings regarding a harmonious school, sense of belonging to the school, and psychosocial wellbeing) and five scales regarding bullying experiences (cyber- and traditional bullying perpetration and victimization; reactions to cyberbullying victimization) were administered to explore the prevalence of cyberbullying in Hong Kong. Findings indicated that male adolescents were more likely than female adolescents to cyberbully others and to be cyber-victimized. Cyberbullying perpetration and victimization were found to be negatively associated with the adolescents' psychosocial health and sense of belonging to school. Cyber- and traditional bullying were positively correlated. Multivariate analyses indicated that being male, having a low sense of belonging to school, involvement in traditional bullying perpetration, and experiencing cyber-victimization were associated with an increased propensity to cyberbully others.

Technology is advancing rapidly, and peer harassment and aggression are no longer limited to traditional bullying through physical contact. Over the past decade, information and communication technology (ICT) has become increasingly important in the lives of adolescents. In a report by Lenhart, Madden, and Hitlin (2005), it is estimated that close to 90% of American adolescents aged 12 to 17 years surf the Internet, with 51% of them using it on a daily basis. Nearly half of the adolescents surveyed have personal mobile phones, and 33% have used a mobile phone to send a text message (Lenhart et al., 2005). Such heavy use of the Internet is not novel among adolescents in Hong Kong. Many empirical studies have been conducted on Hong Kong adolescents on their excessive and/or addictive use of the Internet. Findings of recent studies indicate that a substantially high prevalence rate of internet addiction is reported among Hong Kong adolescents (range from 7% to 38%; e.g., Fu et al., 2010, Leung, 2004 and Shek et al., 2008). In reality, the heavy usage of ICT such as instant messaging, e-mail, text messaging, blogs, and social networking sites not only allows adolescents to connect with friends and family, but at the same time also creates the potential to meet and interact with others in harmful ways (Ybarra, Diener-West, & Leaf, 2007). Cyberbullying or online bullying is one such growing concern. Traditional bullying is a widespread problem in both school and community settings, and has long been researched by scholars (Arora, 1994, Baldry and Farrington, 2000, Olweus, 1978, Olweus, 1993, Smith et al., 2004 and Wong, 2004). Bullying, in general, involves an individual being exposed to negative actions by one or more individuals regularly and for an extended period of time (Olweus, 1978). This can take the form of physical, verbal, or nonverbal actions (Olweus, 1993 and Olweus, 1994). Today, most developmental psychologists and educational researchers agree that school bullying is a form of aggression in which one or more students physically, psychologically, or even sexually harass another student repeatedly over a period of time. The potentially serious negative consequences of being either a victim or a bully are recognized by most researchers (Farrington, 1993, Slee, 1995 and Smith et al., 2004). In recent years, technological advancement has led to a new form of bullying: cyberbullying. Cyberbullying is generally defined as an individual or a group using ICT to deliberately and repeatedly harass or threaten another individual or group by sending or posting cruel texts or images (Patchin and Hinduja, 2006, Ybarra and Mitchell, 2004a and Ybarra and Mitchell, 2004b). Broadly speaking, cyberbullying is a form of verbal or written aggressive or harassing behavior that takes place in a cyber-setting. Personal computers and mobile phones are by far the most common electronic devices favored by young bullies to victimize others. Cyberbullying behavior may consist of overtly aggressive harassment manifested through electronic text, such as sending abusive or threatening messages to the victim. Relational aggressive behavior may consist of denigration (i.e., posting embarrassing photos, rumors, or personal information on the Internet), impersonation (i.e., manipulating the victim's social relationships by sending messages to others through the victim's hacked electronic account), outing/trickery (i.e., divulging personal, sensitive, or embarrassing information that was shared in confidence in an electronic format to unintended recipients), or exclusion (i.e., the purposeful barring of the victim's entrance to an online social activity) (Vandebosch and van Cleemput, 2009 and Willard, 2007). At its most extreme, cyberbullying can be very serious and may involve stalking episodes, sexual harassment, and death threats (Katz, 2001, Li, 2005, Shariff, 2005 and Spitzberg and Hoobler, 2002). Cyberbullies, as with traditional school bullies, are malicious offenders who seek implicit or explicit pleasure or profit through the mistreatment of other individuals (Diamanduros et al., 2008 and Patchin and Hinduja, 2006). Cyberbullies, in general, are heavy Internet users and attach great importance to the Internet. According to Ybarra and Mitchell (2004a), over half of cyberbullies surveyed claimed to be expert Internet users, compared to just one-third of non-bully students (Juvonen & Gross, 2008). As reported by Hinduja and Patchin (2008), reasons frequently cited by American adolescents for engaging in cyberbullying behavior are “revenge,” “he/she deserves it,” and “for fun.” There are three distinct categories of cyberbullies: the “vengeful angels,” the “power hungry,” and “revenge of the nerds” (the latter was coined by Aftab (2007) to label overtly intelligent adolescent cyberbullies). “Mean girls” is another fast-growing subgroup of bullies, whereby girls bond with each other by attacking those who are not part of their chosen group (Aftab, 2007). The offender–victim relationship seems to be a unique feature of cyberbullying. A vast majority of cyberbullies (as high as 84%) know their victims (Wolak et al., 2007 and Ybarra and Mitchell, 2004a). Cyberbullies were also found to be significantly older than their victims (Ybarra & Mitchell, 2004a). Unlike traditional bullying, bullying via ICTs significantly reduces the likelihood of being recognized by victims, since there need not be in physical contact. Some studies found that a high percentage of cyber-victims had no idea who their cyberbullies were (Li, 2005, Li, 2007 and Wolak et al., 2007) or merely suspected that the cyberbullies were peers from school (Juvonen & Gross, 2008). Other studies disagreed; for example, the National Children's Home (2005) indicated that nearly 73% of respondents reported knowing their cyberbully, while only the remaining 26% stated that their cyberbully was a stranger to them.

The present study is among the first to explore the nature and prevalence of cyberbullying among school-aged adolescents in Hong Kong. Although this study has offered a solid initial glimpse into the Hong Kong cyberbullying phenomenon, findings should be interpreted carefully given the inherent methodological limitations. First, this study was cross-sectional in nature, offering information about possible correlations but not causation. For instance, no information was available as to whether cyberbullying perpetration and victimization were the cause or outcome of traditional bullying behavior. Questions of causation such as “Were the adolescents cyber-victimized because they were bullied previously?” and “Were those victims of cyberbullying also victims of traditional school bullying at the same time or in the past?” can only be answered using longitudinal research. Another methodological limitation was the number of items used in this study to explore participants' experiences of cyberbullying perpetration and victimization. Many different items were used in previous studies to assess participants' cyberbullying behavior; the limited number of items used to examine this phenomenon may have resulted in the failure to uncover the complete cyberbullying experience of participants. Thus, future research should consider using a longitudinal design with more testing items to allow for a more comprehensive examination of potential causal processes linking cyber- to traditional bullying. Finally, the present study sampled only adolescents of two secondary school levels; differences in the dynamics of cyberbullying perpetration and victimization in older or young adolescents is unknown. Future attempts could consider sampling adolescents from different educational levels to explore the possibility of differential age effects in cyberbullying perpetration and victimization. Regardless of the noted caveats, the present study offers an important step towards a better understanding of adolescent cyberbullying in Hong Kong. The practical implications suggested are likely to offer benefits not only in the local context, but may also be applicable for other school systems. Undeniably, the school system plays an important role in responding to the phenomenon of cyberbullying. However, other potential intervention strategies should not be overlooked. As aforementioned, the close collaboration between parents or caregivers and school personnel is central to identify and effectively manage potential cyberbullying perpetration or victimization. At home, a healthy family functioning and secure parent–child attachment are keys to reduce the propensity of the adolescents to engage in delinquent activities such as cyberbullying perpetration and to fall prey into such victimization (Chan and Chui, 2012, Chan et al., 2013, Chui and Chan, 2011, Chui and Chan, 2012a, Chui and Chan, 2012b and Chui and Chan, 2013a). Adequate parental guidance and supervision in fostering the adolescents' self-control are critical especially before reaching their adulthood, and would demonstrate positive psychological outcomes in the long run (Chan and Chui, 2013, Chui and Chan, 2013b and Chui and Chan, 2013c). Nevertheless, as this study was exploratory in nature, more research is required to better understand the dynamics of cyberbullying in Hong Kong.