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

Abstract

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