Cyberbullying entre adolescentes usuários de internet: um estudo de levantamento online

Abstract

Recent years are marked by radical changes in communication modes. The diffusion of technologies allows users to become exposed to interpersonal violence, persecution and attacks that occur in the virtual environment, which features cyberbullying, defined as aggressive, intentional act carried out by a group or individual through electronic contacts. In order to describe and explore its manifestations as well as possible ways of coping, three texts were developed. The first aims to present and discuss the concept of cyberbullying from a research-based literature. The second article presents initial data from a survey of cyberbullying among Internet users (pilot study). The study enrolled 70 adolescents between 13-17 years of age (mean: 15.6 years; SD = 1.18). The most frequently mentioned types of cyberbullying were insults in online forums (20%); online publication of embarrassing picture without the permission of the person who appears in it (18.6%). The coping strategies identified as most effective were: remove the aggressor from the contact list (55.7%), tell parents / relatives (54.3%) and block the offender (52.9%). Finally, the third text seeks to analyze data from an online survey study conducted with 453 teenagers between 13 and 17 years, living in the city of Juiz de Fora-MG. Among the participants, 67.3% reported at least one incident of cyber aggression and 63.8% reported at least one episode of cyber victimization in the last six months, and 78.6% scored at least one point in the overall score, or be victims or perpetrators. Both strategies identified by participants as more effective in dealing with cyberbullying were blocking the offender (81%) and remove the offender from the contact list (84%). The quantitative and qualitative results are presented, analyzed and discussed based on the available literature, in order to contribute to scientific knowledge, and provide practical implications and a better understanding of the phenomenon in Brazilian scene.