Cyber Bullying among Senior Secondary School Students:Nature and Prevalence

Background: In spite of the growing concern about the effects of cyber bullying on youth, to date only a few studies have investigated this phenomenon among secondary school samples. Consequently, very little is known about the nature of cyber bullying and its impacts on the secondary school students. Objectives: The purpose of the present study was to examine the prevalence and nature of cyber bullying among a sample of secondary school students and also to determine whether significant differences existed between the mental and emotional health of cyber bullied and non-cyber bullied students. Method: A total of 357, 11th and 12th grade students in six schools completed the requisite measures. Descriptive statistics were used to determine the prevalence and nature of cyber bullying and t-test was used to find the differences between the mental and emotional health of cyber bullied and non-cyber bullied students. Results: The findings of the study revealed that a substantial number of youth (52.10%;n=186) reported being cyber victimized, predominantly through social networking sites. Only 12% of cyber victimized youth knew the identity of the perpetrator and almost 42 % reported that they did not tell anyone about the incident. Results also revealed that the cyber victimized youths reported significantly poor mental and emotional health in comparison to non cyber victimized youths. Conclusions: The results of the present study suggest the need for developmentally appropriate prevention and intervention programs implemented at the secondary school level if efforts to address this growing complex problem have to be successful.