Abstract
Cyberbullying and sexting have made headlines and caused concern over their legality and potential risk to safety. In this article, the authors discuss cyberbullying and sexting behavior and examine the association with mobile phone use. Using research from leading researchers in the field, they provide information about the prevalence of cyberbullying and sexting, the mobile phone as an avenue for these behaviors, and solutions to prevent victimization. In conclusion, the authors recommend that awareness, guidelines, and monitoring are preventative rather than reactive. In order to develop this chapter, the authors used evidence from leading researchers in the fields of bullying and cyberbullying prevention. These researchers include Dorothy Espelage, PhD., Professor of Child Development in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Dr. Tonja Nansel, senior investigator at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver Institute of Child Health and Development. In addition, they have included the most current information from scholarly articles written by researchers who diligently examine the emerging issues around sexting and cyberbullying. This includes the work of Bastiaensens, S., Vandebosch, H., Poels, K., Van Cleemput, K., DeSmet, A. and Bourdeaudhij, I.D.
TopPrevalence Of Cyberbullying
It is important to understand who engages in cyberbullying and what research says about that. There is a clear connection in the profiles of those who cyberbully and those who use traditional non-physical bullying. Research suggests that those behaviors are not mutually exclusive. In fact, both forms of bullying are associated with families where there is some level of violence and low parental monitoring. This really means that when adult supervision is low and the adults model aggressive and/or violent behavior, the frequency of both bullying and cyberbullying increases (Low & Espelage, 2013).
Key Terms in this Chapter
Bullying: Bullying is repeated negative/hostile behavior by one or more persons that is directed toward one who is unable to defend him/herself.
Social media: Social media includes electronic platforms for social connections ie. Facebook, Twitter, Tinder etc.
Sexting: Sexting is the sending, forwarding, or receiving of sexual images by electronic means.
Prevalence of Cyberbullying: For many reasons, it is difficult to ascertain the exact prevalence of cyberbullying and sexting behaviors among youth. Technology is constantly evolving and youth have unprecedented access to the online world an along with the increased access therefore is vulnerability to cyberbullying increases.
Solutions: The key to protecting youth from cyberbullying is to – monitor, supervise and follow-up.
Online Safety: Online safety is the process where people take steps to protect themselves from cyberbullying.
Cyberbullying: Cyberbullying is bullying using electronic means.