| dc.description.abstract | This report presents research about Norwegian adolescents’ experiences with online aggression. We examine three different roles that children and young people can experience in these contexts, namely as victim, perpetrator and/or as bystander.
In 2018, 25% of Norwegian children aged 9 to 17 reported that they were treated in a mean or hurtful way online or offline, while 12% said they did this to other children (Staksrud & Ólafsson, 2019). Significantly more older girls reported being victimized, while older boys reported victimizing others more often.
Boys of younger ages reported witnessing online aggression to a higher degree, while older girls reported that they tended to help victims of online aggression more often.
Our findings show that there is a significant overlap between online victimization and perpetration. Almost half of the girls and 67% of the boys report being both a victim and a perpetrator. The findings show that perpetrators may justify the use of violence for power.
We also find that social factors, such as the quality of the family and school environments and peer support were relevant for all types of participants in cyber-aggression. Lower quality and support increased the probability of being involved in aggression. Feeling safe online was also a significant variable in all types of involvement. Lower feelings of safety online increased the probability of involvement in online aggression.
Being a victim of online aggression increases the chances of seeing negative user-generated content (NUGC), especially seeing sites showing suicide-related content and ways to engage in self-harming behaviors. All main roles in online aggression, i.e. victim, perpetrator, and bystander, also reported higher scores for symptoms of emotional stress.
The results show that when examining online aggression, individual and social factors that influence young people’s well-being offline should also be considered.
This report includes a final section with recommendations for policy and practice for addressing and preventing online aggression and bullying among young people. The complexity of peer-to-peer online aggression, particularly with regard to the overlap between victimization and perpetration, necessitates a move from individualistic to systemic and socially oriented solutions. | |