IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v19y2022i10p5886-d813940.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Victims of Cyberbullying: Feeling Loneliness and Depression among Youth and Adult Chileans during the Pandemic

Author

Listed:
  • Jorge J. Varela

    (Facultad de Psicología, Universidad del Desarrollo, Santiago 7610658, Chile)

  • Cristóbal Hernández

    (Escuela de Psicología, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez, Santiago 7941169, Chile
    Instituto Milenio para la Investigación en Depresión y Personalidad, MIDAP, Santiago 7820436, Chile)

  • Rafael Miranda

    (Departamento de Psicología, Universidad Continental del Perú, Lima 12001, Peru)

  • Christopher P. Barlett

    (Department of Psychological Sciences, Kansas State University, Manhattan, NY 66506-5302, USA)

  • Matías E. Rodríguez-Rivas

    (Facultad de Psicología, Universidad del Desarrollo, Santiago 7610658, Chile)

Abstract

In Chile, during the COVID-19 pandemic, reports of cyberbullying victimization increased for adolescents and younger adults. Research has shown that cyber-victims—adolescents and young adults alike—are at greater risk for mental health problems such as depression as a result of this negative type of aggression. Yet, a paucity of research has examined the individual mechanisms germane to cyber-victim depression. We focused on loneliness for the current study. We hypothesized that cyber-victimization would be positively related to depressive symptoms through increased fears of loneliness and that this effect would differ between adolescents and younger adults. Thus, we examined a sample of 2370 participants from all main regions of Chile aged from 15 to 29 years. Moderated mediation results showed a negative effect of cyberbullying on depression, which was mediated by increased fears of being alone. The effect of frequency of cyberbullying on fear of loneliness was stronger for younger adults compared to adolescents. Our results suggest different mechanisms for both age groups, which can inform prevention programs and their specific activities.

Suggested Citation

  • Jorge J. Varela & Cristóbal Hernández & Rafael Miranda & Christopher P. Barlett & Matías E. Rodríguez-Rivas, 2022. "Victims of Cyberbullying: Feeling Loneliness and Depression among Youth and Adult Chileans during the Pandemic," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(10), pages 1-15, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:10:p:5886-:d:813940
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/10/5886/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/10/5886/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Elizabeth Cañas & Estefanía Estévez & Celeste León-Moreno & Gonzalo Musitu, 2020. "Loneliness, Family Communication, and School Adjustment in a Sample of Cybervictimized Adolescents," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(1), pages 1-13, January.
    2. Meichun Mohler-Kuo & Shota Dzemaili & Simon Foster & Laura Werlen & Susanne Walitza, 2021. "Stress and Mental Health among Children/Adolescents, Their Parents, and Young Adults during the First COVID-19 Lockdown in Switzerland," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(9), pages 1-17, April.
    3. Julianne Holt-Lunstad & Timothy B Smith & J Bradley Layton, 2010. "Social Relationships and Mortality Risk: A Meta-analytic Review," PLOS Medicine, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(7), pages 1-1, July.
    4. Fang, Jie & Wang, Xingchao & Wen, Zhonglin & Huang, Jiayan, 2020. "Cybervictimization and loneliness among Chinese college students: A moderated mediation model of rumination and online social support," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 115(C).
    5. Oberski, Daniel, 2014. "lavaan.survey: An R Package for Complex Survey Analysis of Structural Equation Models," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 57(i01).
    6. Hong Yan Li & Hui Cao & Doris Y. P. Leung & Yim Wah Mak, 2020. "The Psychological Impacts of a COVID-19 Outbreak on College Students in China: A Longitudinal Study," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(11), pages 1-11, June.
    7. Michelle F. Wright & Sebastian Wachs, 2019. "Adolescents’ Psychological Consequences and Cyber Victimization: The Moderation of School-Belongingness and Ethnicity," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(14), pages 1-11, July.
    8. Rosseel, Yves, 2012. "lavaan: An R Package for Structural Equation Modeling," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 48(i02).
    9. Magdalena Celuch & Atte Oksanen & Pekka Räsänen & Matthew Costello & Catherine Blaya & Izabela Zych & Vicente J. Llorent & Ashley Reichelmann & James Hawdon, 2022. "Factors Associated with Online Hate Acceptance: A Cross-National Six-Country Study among Young Adults," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(1), pages 1-13, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Li, Wanqi, 2024. "“Amusing ourselves to death”: Mechanisms in cyberbullying prompted by rumors and denigration amidst the COVID-19 pandemic in China," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    2. Sarah E. Domoff & Stacey B. Armstrong & Heide Rollings & Amy Mancuso & Mary B. Pacheco & Russell Fridson & Carol A. Janney, 2024. "Problematic and Harmful Social Media Use among Adolescents Receiving Intensive Psychiatric Care," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 21(10), pages 1-14, October.
    3. Anna Sorrentino & Francesco Sulla & Margherita Santamato & Marco di Furia & Giusi Antonia Toto & Lucia Monacis, 2023. "Has the COVID-19 Pandemic Affected Cyberbullying and Cybervictimization Prevalence among Children and Adolescents? A Systematic Review," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(10), pages 1-20, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Pezzuti, Lina & Tommasi, Marco & Saggino, Aristide & Dawe, James & Lauriola, Marco, 2020. "Gender differences and measurement bias in the assessment of adult intelligence: Evidence from the Italian WAIS-IV and WAIS-R standardizations," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    2. Julia Morgan & Casey Canfield, 2021. "Comparing Behavioral Theories to Predict Consumer Interest to Participate in Energy Sharing," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(14), pages 1-17, July.
    3. Reynolds, J.P. & Pilling, M. & Marteau, T.M., 2018. "Communicating quantitative evidence of policy effectiveness and support for the policy: Three experimental studies," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 218(C), pages 1-12.
    4. Ana Isabel Maldonado & Carol B. Cunradi & Anna María Nápoles, 2020. "Racial/Ethnic Discrimination and Intimate Partner Violence Perpetration in Latino Men: The Mediating Effects of Mental Health," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(21), pages 1-17, November.
    5. Johannes Bodo Heekerens & Kathrin Heinitz, 2019. "Looking Forward: The Effect of the Best-Possible-Self Intervention on Thriving Through Relative Intrinsic Goal Pursuits," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 20(5), pages 1379-1395, June.
    6. Hayes, Timothy & McArdle, John J., 2017. "Should we impute or should we weight? Examining the performance of two CART-based techniques for addressing missing data in small sample research with nonnormal variables," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 35-52.
    7. Sheppard, Leah D. & O'Reilly, Jane & van Dijke, Marius & Restubog, Simon Lloyd D. & Aquino, Karl, 2020. "The stress-relieving benefits of positively experienced social sexual behavior in the workplace," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 38-52.
    8. Stéphanie Bourion-Bédès & Hélène Rousseau & Martine Batt & Pascale Tarquinio & Romain Lebreuilly & Christine Sorsana & Karine Legrand & Rabah Machane & Cyril Tarquinio & Cédric Baumann, 2022. "Mental Health Status of French School-Aged Children’s Parents during the COVID-19 Lockdown and Its Associated Factors," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(17), pages 1-13, September.
    9. Meyers, Maria Christina & van Woerkom, Marianne & Bauwens, Robin, 2023. "Stronger together: A multilevel study of collective strengths use and team performance," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    10. Benjamin Motte-Baumvol & Olivier Bonin, 2018. "The spatial dimensions of immobility in France," Transportation, Springer, vol. 45(5), pages 1231-1247, September.
    11. David Villarreal-Zegarra & Anthony Copez-Lonzoy & Antonio Bernabé-Ortiz & G J Melendez-Torres & Juan Carlos Bazo-Alvarez, 2019. "Valid group comparisons can be made with the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9): A measurement invariance study across groups by demographic characteristics," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(9), pages 1-15, September.
    12. Jesús F. Estévez & Elizabeth Cañas & Estefanía Estévez, 2020. "The Impact of Cybervictimization on Psychological Adjustment in Adolescence: Analyzing the Role of Emotional Intelligence," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(10), pages 1-12, May.
    13. Bryan, Bridget T. & Thompson, Katherine N. & Goldman-Mellor, Sidra & Moffitt, Terrie E. & Odgers, Candice L. & So, Sincere Long Shin & Uddin Rahman, Momtahena & Wertz, Jasmin & Matthews, Timothy & Ars, 2024. "The socioeconomic consequences of loneliness: Evidence from a nationally representative longitudinal study of young adults," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 345(C).
    14. Bence Csaba Farkas & Valérian Chambon & Pierre O. Jacquet, 2022. "Do perceived control and time orientation mediate the effect of early life adversity on reproductive behaviour and health status? Insights from the European Value Study and the European Social Survey," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 9(1), pages 1-14, December.
    15. Wolgast, Anett & Donat, Matthias, 2019. "Cultural mindset and bullying experiences: An eight-year trend study of adolescents' risk behaviors, internalizing problems, talking to friends, and social support," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 257-269.
    16. Hartung, Johanna & Doebler, Philipp & Schroeders, Ulrich & Wilhelm, Oliver, 2018. "Dedifferentiation and differentiation of intelligence in adults across age and years of education," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 37-49.
    17. Sonia Nawrocka & Hans De Witte & Margherita Pasini & Margherita Brondino, 2023. "A Person-Centered Approach to Job Insecurity: Is There a Reciprocal Relationship between the Quantitative and Qualitative Dimensions of Job Insecurity?," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(7), pages 1-27, March.
    18. Md. Mominur Rahman & Bilkis Akhter, 2021. "The impact of investment in human capital on bank performance: evidence from Bangladesh," Future Business Journal, Springer, vol. 7(1), pages 1-13, December.
    19. Maria Alzira Pimenta Dinis & Helder Fernando Pedrosa Sousa & Andreia de Moura & Lilian M. F. Viterbo & Ricardo J. Pinto, 2019. "Health Behaviors as a Mediator of the Association Between Interpersonal Relationships and Physical Health in a Workplace Context," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(13), pages 1-9, July.
    20. Masashi Soga & Kevin J. Gaston & Yuichi Yamaura & Kiyo Kurisu & Keisuke Hanaki, 2016. "Both Direct and Vicarious Experiences of Nature Affect Children’s Willingness to Conserve Biodiversity," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 13(6), pages 1-12, May.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:10:p:5886-:d:813940. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.