Cyber Bullying as a Correlate of Psychological Well Being Academic Achievement and Socio Emotional School Environment of Adolescents

Abstract

newline Advances in communication technology have generated an entirely new mode of bullying known as cyber-bullying. Cyber bullying is use of technology (cell phones, instant messaging, e-mail, chat rooms or social networking sites such as facebook etc,.) to harass or intimidate someone The consequences of cyber bullying have greater impact than traditional forms of bullying. Social networking has significantly altered communication and interaction patterns and created a dynamic venue for perpetration and victimization of bullying. Therefore the aim of the current study is to investigate about the perpetration pattern of cyber bullying, its victimization pattern and relationship of cyber bullying with psychological well being of an individual and relationship with its academic achievement and socio-emotional school climate. This study explored the prevalence of cyber-bullying within a state of Punjab, comprising five major cities, namely Amritsar, Ludhiana, Patiala, Mandi Gobindgarh and Jalandhar. A sample consists of 400 students in age group of 16-18 of public and private schools of Punjab. Semi-structured interview schedule was carried out to know the prevalence of cyber bullying Psychological well being scale and socio-emotional school climate inventory was also used to know the relationship between cyber bullying and its correlates. Academic achievement record of the adolescents was also taken to check the impact of cyber bullying on the adolescents. Descriptive and exploratory analytical statistics were used to analyze responses. The prevalence of cyber bullying and its impact on school students were analyzed and compared with respect to variables viz. gender, location and access to internet. Findings suggested that 58% of the respondents were normal and 41.2 % of the individuals had been involved in Cyber bullying acts. It was also observed that 53% of the respondents were Male and 47% of the respondents were Female. Among them 52.2% were urban respondents and 47.7% were rural respondents. 93.7% of the students had access to internet while 17.5% did not have any access to internet. More female and urban respondents reported to be involved in cyber bullying acts respectively and all were having access to internet. Most of the adolescents were victimised through the social networking sites such Facebook etc. It was also inferred that cyber bullying perpetration was lower than cyber bullying victimization. It is found that when cyber bullying increases, psychological well being decreases to a significant level and it effects socio emotional school climate also but to a low significant level. Also if cyber bullying increases, academic achievement will decrease but to a very high significant level. In future, experimental research could be undertaken so as to examine the ways and means of solving the menace of the cyber bullying. The scope of sample could be broadened to college and university students, in other states of India, including different mental problems etc. newline newline newline