Examining characteristics and associated distress related to Internet harassment:
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2006
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Pediatrics
Abstract
Description
Objective: We sought to identify the characteristics of youth who are targets of Internet harassment and characteristics related to reporting distress as a result of the incident. The Second Youth Internet Safety Survey is a national telephone survey of a random sample of 1500 Internet users between the ages of 10 and 17 years conducted between March and June 2005. Internet harassment can be a serious event for some youth. Because there has been a significant increase in the prevalence of Internet harassment from 2000 to 2005, adolescent health professionals should continue to be vigilant about such experiences in the lives of young people with whom they interact. Social problems and online aggressive behavior are each associated with elevated odds of being the target of harassment. Thus, prevention efforts may be best aimed at improving the interpersonal skills of young people who choose to communicate with others using these online tools. Adolescent health professionals should be especially aware of events that include aggressive offline contacts by adult harassers or asking the child or adolescent to send a picture of themselves, because each of these scenarios increase the odds of reporting distress by more than threefold. Findings further support the call for the inclusion of Internet-harassment prevention in conventional antibullying programs empowering schools to address Internet bullying situations that occur between students. This will not solve all situations, however. We also must encourage Internet service providers to partner with consumers to be proactive in serious harassment episodes that violate criminal laws and service-provider codes of conduct.
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Keywords
Best Practices-Prevention, Exploitation -- Internet, Internet, Internet -- safety