THE EMOTIONAL IMPACTS OF DIFFERENT FORMS OF CYBER BULLYING VICTIMIZATION IN EGYPTIAN UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

Research Abstract

ABSTRACT Background: The rapid development in cyber technologies and communica-tions lead to many cybercrimes and misuses that result into graving emo-tional and psychological impacts. Aim: This study aims to detect the emotional impacts of cyberbullying victimization among university stu-dents in Egypt. Subjects and methods: A total of 6740 students from 28 faculties of Beni-Suef University participated in this cross-sectional survey. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data about the socio-demographics of the participants, their exposure to cyber-bullying in the past 6 months and the emotional impacts of the worst inci-dents they experienced during this period. These emotions were sorrow, disappointment, loneliness, anger, ha-tred and fear. Results: Anger was the most common response to almost all incidents of cyberbullying victimizations followed by hatred and sorrow (p<0.05). Fear was related to threatening and outing while disappointment was linked to exclusion. Compared to females, males were more likely to show sorrow, dis-appointment and hatred, and less like-ly to show fear (p<0.05). Students from rural areas showed more sorrow and hatred emotions (p<0.05) and stu-dents attending natural sciences facul-ties responded with more sorrow, dis-appointment, anger and hatred, and with less fear (p<0.05). Conclusion: Cyberbulluing victimiza-tion carries many negative emotional impacts. In addition to type of inci-dents, sex of victims, their residence and their faculties may play role in determining the psychological effects of exposure to cyberbullying.

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