Cyberbullying in Relation to Empathy and Friendship Quality

Introduction

The rapid development of communications technology over the past decade has led to new possibilities for online interaction. The presence of the internet has become one of the needs of today's adolescents (Quarshie, 2009; Nixon, 2014). Connecting online in a community is essential for adolescents, and is a community reality that can not be underestimated (Notar, Padgett, & Roden, 2013). The evolution of information and communication technology, in addition to providing benefits to the social and emotional development of adolescents (Kowalski, Giumetti, Schroeder, & Lattanner, 2014), also raises problematic patterns in the interpersonal communication of adolescents (Sticca, Perren, Ruggieri, & Alsaker, 2013). One of them is cyberbullying. Cyberbullying is done using computers and mobile phones via e-mail, text messages, instant messages, websites and chat rooms by slandering or making negative rumors about the victim (Smith, Mahdavi, Carvalho, Fisher, Russell, & Tippett, 2008). Obermair, Nayla, and Koch (2014) defined cyberbullying, more specifically, as the use of internet and phone applications to destroy, disturb, or defame others deliberately.

This research begins with preliminary survey research and interviews with active teenage internet users from one of the State Senior High School in Yogyakarta. Most adolescents in the school access the internet for an average of five to eight hours a day. As many as 83% of the 180 respondents who filled the questionnaire stated that they had, at least once, sent messages and texts through social media to insult a classmate, senior, sibling, and students from other schools. Of the 83%, 62% said they often see their friends posting news with harmful content to classmates, spreading rumors, and sending videos in joking contexts. Seventeen percent of the remaining respondents claimed to have sent messages, comments and threats to other friends due to feeling hurt, fad, or hateful about another friends’ achievement. The results of interviews with guidance and counseling teachers explored the incidences associated with cyberbullying. One of the incidents experienced by student A in class X; he felt depressed and embarrassed due to the spreading negative rumors about him in social media. The student refused to come to school, and after much investigation, it was found that the perpetrator was a classmate with a close relationship with him/her. The offender did not believe that the rumor will interfere with the victim and still spread false rumors through edited pictures, despite knowing that it hurt the victim's feelings. Early surveys in high school indicate the existence of cyberbullying practices in adolescents to be related to the sense of antipathy (lack of empathy) and harmful friendship.