Article review #1
“Cyberbullying and Cyber Victimization during and before the Covid-19 Pandemic”
Nicholas Dent
September 26, 2024
Introduction
The article I will be reviewing is titled “Cyberbullying During COVID-19 Pandemic: Relation to Perceived Social Isolation Among College and University Students”, by Nadya S. Neuhaeusler. To give a brief introduction, this article essentially talks about loneliness among college students during and before the pandemic. This article provides evidence and data analyzing the rate of self isolation students experienced during these two periods of times. In addition, the article also dives into the idea of cyber victimization amid college and university students. Along with that the article also gives accurate data and statistics through multiple research methods.
Principles of social sciences
In this article there was a good use of social principles pertaining to cybercrime. The first social principle I found important was determinism. Determinism gives the idea that somebody might start hacking because of previous events. Although this doesn’t give a full representation on why somebody would commit such a crime, it still gives a basis. This principle relates to the topic of this article because of the information given about cyberbullying. Based on what I read in this article, somebody who has experienced cyberbullying is more likely to feel isolated and in turn begin to start hacking. Furthermore, ethical neutrality was used in this article by the researchers not giving out personal information during the study. In the article, it was said that The researcher also guaranteed protection by not collecting personal information. For example background information, names, and IP addresses. This is crucial when conducting studies to not reveal any of the participants information based on the use of ethics. Although there are other social principles these two were the most important and emphasized ones in this article. Objectivity can be seen in this article by researchers not using personal biases to record participants’ answers and making balanced questions to find accurate data. Empiricism relates to the article by researchers not generating a hunch about the data given without the use of natural senses such as the use of survey questions. In this study the use of parsimony isnt used to the best degree because of the various range of variables used in the study. For example, the participants’ ages ranged from 18-55 years old, and the ethnicities of the participants were very diverse as listed in the data table. All in all, there was a wide range of information in this article to describe the specific social principles used.
Research methods and Data
In this article the research method used were surveys. To be more specific, through the process of 5 and 8 point scales asking questions about cyber experiences during and after the pandemic. All of the data collected in the surveys were both recorded before and after the pandemic. During this study there were 331 people that participated with a wide range of demographics who all had to be at least 18 years old and up. The data collected from the participants mainly consisted of the use of a 5 point scale from 1 being never, to 5 being everyday. For instance, the independent and dependent variable both used these methods to collect information. Some of the questions used for the solution to the independent and dependent variables were, “have you been made fun of online”, “have you received a message that made fun of you”, and “have you had something posted about you online” (Neuhaeusler et al. 2024). Based on these questions and the recorded answers the independent variables of this study were cyberbullying experiences before the pandemic, social media usage, and perceived social isolation. Likewise, the dependent variable of the study was the comparison of cyber victimization during and after the pandemic. Along with the 5 point scales there were also 8 point scale questions that participants were met with. The question used for the 8 point scale was “How much time do you spend on social media platforms a day”, with 0 being little to no social media to 8 being 8 or more hours on social media. After looking over all the final data tables and information I can conclude that there was an average of about 36.1% of people feeling left out or self isolated during the pandemic, and 82.2% of people not feeling left out or self isolated at all.
Hypotheses and Analysis
The article’s general hypothesis based on the social isolation during the covid-19 pandemic and cyberbullying was social isolation likely increased cyberspace engagement, along with cyberbullying victimization experiences during the pandemic. Furthermore, there were three more hypotheses listed determined by the data collected in a 2021 survey about cyberbullying victimization experiences, social media usage, and perceived social isolation. The three hypotheses were “cyberbullying victimization has increased during the COVID-19 pandemic”(H1), “social media usage is positively associated with cyberbullying victimization”(H2), and “perceived social isolation is positively associated with cyberbullying victimization”(H3) (Neuhaeusler et al. 2024). After all data was collected it was concluded that H1 is not supported and non-significant. That claim being social media benign associated with cyberbullying victimization. Likewise, H2 was deemed insignificant due to the data collected through isolated individuals not increasing technology use to seek social connections. As opposed to the H1 and H2, the third hypothesis proved to be significant based on the data collected. In the article, it was said that the findings of social isolation increased a lot during the pandemic with most of the cases reporting that participants feeling more prone to isolation through the outcome of the pandemic. Overall this study was made to study young individuals during and before the pandemic, as well as record data about participants being cyberbullied and victimized.
Challenges, Marginalized Groups, and Contributions to Society/Powerpoints
In terms of marginalized groups cyberbullying can happen to anyone because it’s most commonly done online. Even though ethnicity, gender, and age plays a role in cyberbullying, I believe that it does not play a huge factor when targeting a specific marginalized group as opposed to bullying in everyday society. This relates to the powerpoint concept of the psychological consequences of cyberbullying. The claim that is given in the powerpoint says that people who were victimized more often might have a different reaction than people who have been victimized less times. This claim plays a crucial part when discussing psychological consequences because of the likely chance of someone experiencing cyberbullying potentially engaging in cybercrime. Another concept that was commonly used in the article was the use of surveys in this article. The surveys recorded in this article played a big part in gathering accurate data among participants.
Conclusion
The overall topic of this article is cyberbullying before and during the pandemic. This article relates to challenges because of self isolation among the people who participated. Even though cyberbullying isn’t as physical as bullying in society, it still is a very serious topic. Based on this article and the data recorded, cyberbullying and cybervictimization is still something that people deal with in this present day. I think that this study contributes to society by bringing awareness to people potentially getting cyberbullied or somebody who was cyber victimized. Along with putting a focus on psychological consequences, mental issues, and victimization in this world today. All things considered, this article does a great job highlighting a common problem in today’s society and giving informative data about cyberbullying relating to cybercrime during and before the Covid-19 pandemic.
References
Neuhaeusler, N. S. (2024). Cyberbullying during COVID-19 pandemic: Relation to perceived social isolation among college and university students . International Journal of Cybersecurity Intelligence & Cybercrime, 7(1), – . DOI: https://doi.org/10.52306/2578-3289.1140