Elsevier

Computers in Human Behavior

Volume 65, December 2016, Pages 1-8
Computers in Human Behavior

Full length article
Loneliness, parent-child communication and cyberbullying victimization among Spanish youths

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2016.08.015Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Loneliness, parent-child communication and cyberbullying victimization were examined.

  • Parent-child communication was measured through adolescent's and parent's reports.

  • Perceived communication problems with the mother were associated with cyberbullying.

  • Severe victimization was associated with parents' reports of offensive communication.

Abstract

Cyberbullying has been recognized as an important risk factor for mental health. Few studies have analyzed relationships between family variables and cyberbullying victimization. This ex post facto study analyze the relationships between loneliness, parent-child communication and different groups of cyberbullying victims (non-involved, occasional and severe; and an extreme case of cyberbullying, daily victims). A battery of instruments was applied to 813 Spanish adolescents in grades 7–10 (loneliness, parent-child communication and cyberbullying victimization). Their parents completed the parent-child communication scale. Logistic regressions analyses were applied to determine if cyberbullying victimization is associated with loneliness and parent-child communication. The results showed that adolescents' reports of avoidant communication with the mother was associated with occasional cyberbullying victimization. Adolescents' reports of avoidant communication with the mother and feelings of loneliness were associated with severe cyberbullying victimization. Additionally, parents’ reports of offensive communication was associated with severe cyberbullying victimization. The results of this study highlight the association of communication family problems with cyberbullying victimization.

Introduction

For more than a decade, researchers have been exploring the prevalence and impact of peer victimization online. They have reported significant associations between cyberbullying victimization and mental health issues, including depression, low self-esteem, suicide ideation, social anxiety, low life satisfaction detachment, externalized hostility, delinquency and poor academic performance (Landstedt and Persson, 2014, Tsitsika et al., 2015, You et al., 2015). The negative impact of cyberbullying has led researchers to investigate predictors of cyberbullying (Ang, 2015). According to the Socio-Ecological Theory (Bronfenbrenner, 1977), cyberbullying victimization is likely to originate or be maintained over time as a result of the interplay between intra- and inter-individual factors (Cross et al., 2015, Fullchange and Furlong, 2016, Moon et al., 2015, Swearer and Hymel, 2015). Several studies have informed that adolescents who are shy, experience difficulties in social interactions, have no or few friends, are either dislike or socially withdrawn, and who report feelings of loneliness are more likely to become cyberbullying victims (Álvarez-García et al., 2015, Navarro et al., 2015, Tarablus et al., 2015, Zhou et al., 2013). Available studies have shown that cyberbullying victimization is linked to family characteristics, such as poor parent-children relationships, lack of parental emotional support, infrequent and poor parental monitoring, sibling warmth and family cohesion (Chang et al., 2015, Ortega-Barón et al., 2016, Safaria, 2015, Ybarra and Mitchell, 2004). The present study, which also applied the Socio-Ecological Theory, aimed to determine if cyberbullying victimization among Spanish adolescents can be explained by micro (loneliness) and meso (parent-child communication) antecedents.

Loneliness results from perceived deficiencies in an individual's social relationships, is a subjective experience, and is unpleasant and distressing (West, Kellner, & Moore-West, 1986). Previous research has shown that loneliness is associated with increased Internet use, including problematic Internet use (Ang et al., 2012, Appel et al., 2012, Morahan-Martin and Schumacher, 2003, Stickley et al., 2014). Lonely adolescents may go online to look for companionship, emotional support, or to try to avoid negative moods associated with loneliness. Although some of those youths can find resources to deal with loneliness when they are online, other adolescents who spend time on the Internet are also exposed to a number of potential risks, e.g. cyberbullying (Shin & Ahn, 2015).

Different studies have found a clear correlation between cyberbullying victimization and feelings of loneliness (Heiman et al., 2015, Schoffstall and Cohen, 2011). Among them, whereas some have found that loneliness was a significant predictor of cybervictimization (Olenik-Shemesh et al., 2012, Şahin, 2012), other shown that loneliness was a significant predictor of traditional victimization, but not for cybervictimization (Brewer and Kerslake, 2015, Brighi et al., 2012). As the results from available studies are mixed, further research is needed to understand the association between loneliness and cybervictimization.

Prior studies have shown that communication problems in the family environment are an important risk factor for getting involved in traditional bullying (Musitu et al., 2007, Spriggs et al., 2007, Swearer and Hymel, 2015). Recent research has also pointed out that the quality of communication with parents is closely related to adolescents’ Internet use (Chang et al., 2015, Law et al., 2010, Liu et al., 2012). Findings have particularly suggested that parents having a positive communication channel with their adolescents, and being aware of their online activities are relevant factors that contribute to healthy Internet use and protect from problematic use of Internet, e.g. having obsessive thoughts about the Internet, and increased social withdrawal (Ang et al., 2012, Huang et al., 2010).

However, it is important to study specifically how parent-child communication relate to cybervictimization. Some evidence in this area already exists. Wang, Iannotti, and Nansel (2009) found that positive communication to understand adolescents’ problems and worries, or skills to make adolescents feel better when they are upset, protect them from cyberbullying. Elgar et al. (2014) reported that family communication may help protect adolescents from the harmful consequences of cyberbullying. Makri-Botsari and Karagianni (2014) found that parent-child communication difficulties increases the persistence of cyberbullying victimization.

Despite some existing evidence, further research is clearly needed to not only more fully understand the effects of parent-child communication, but to also uncover the association of different communication patterns (e.g. degree of openness and extent of the problems in family communication) with cyberbullying victimization. Additionally, past evidence has also shown that difficulties in relationships with parents also lead to feelings of loneliness (Bullock, 1993, Segrin et al., 2012). It is seem necessary to examining the interaction between loneliness and parent-child communication and how this interaction could be related with cyberbullying victimization.

This study addressed the gaps in the literature by first examining the associations between loneliness and parent-child communication factors and different groups of victims considering severity of harm. Examining feelings of loneliness and parent-child communication interactions that characterize adolescents in different groups of victims could play a relevant role in developing preventive and intervention programs. Second, existing studies have measured parent-child communication as a global construct. So it is of interest to address different parent-child communication subtypes according to the degree of openness and the extent of family communication problems. Third, most previous studies have examined adolescents' reports of parent-child communication without considering parents’ reports to acquire more accurate information about this family variable. Based on previous findings obtained to date, the following main hypotheses were examined:

H1

Reports of loneliness and family communication problems will be higher among victims of cyberbullying in comparison to non-involved students.

H2

Although previous research has offered contradictory results, we expected higher loneliness scores to be associated with self-reported cyberbullying.

H3

We also expected higher open communication scores to be associated with non-involvement in self-reported cyberbullying, whereas higher scores in communication problems with family would be associated with self-reported cyberbullying.

Section snippets

Participants

Participants were 813 seventh through to tenth grade students, and their parents, from four public secondary schools in the Castilla-La Mancha region (Spain). Gender composition was 45.4% males and 54.6% females. Ages ranged from 12 to 18 years old (M = 14.38; SD = 1.55). To select the sample, we took into account the population of students in grade 7 to 10 published in the Regional Castilla-La Mancha Government's statistical data about education population. Using a confidence level of 95%,

Relationships among cyberbullying victimization, loneliness and parent-child communication

Prior to creating the victims groups according to the severity of the harm, bivariate correlations were initially performed among all the study variables. At this stage, all the variables in the correlation analysis were continuous. As show in Table 1, Pearson's correlation analysis revealed weak, yet significant, correlations between cyberbullying victimization and all the variables analyzed herein. Irrespectively of gender, cyberbullying correlated positively with loneliness, parents' reports

Discussion

The first purpose of this study was to analyze the differences in loneliness and parents' and adolescents' reports of family communication among cyberbullying victims. Our data indicated that cyberbullying victims, compared to the group of non-victims, reported stronger feelings of loneliness and more communication problems with parents according to both parents' and adolescents’ reports. On the contrary, non-victims reported better open communication with parents than cyberbullying victims.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Funding

This research was financed by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under the National Program of Research and Innovation (I + D + i 2015): PSI2015-70822-R.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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