THE EMOTIONAL IMPACTS OF DIFFERENT FORMS OF CYBER BULLYING VICTIMIZATION IN EGYPTIAN UNIVERSITY STUDENTS
Ahmed Emad El-Din Arafa1, Omaima Ezzat Mahmoud2, Shaimaa Ahmed Senosy1
1Department of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, Beni-Suef University
2Department of Psychiatry Mental Health Nursing, Faculty of Nursing, Beni-Suef University
Background: The rapid development in cyber technologies and communications lead to many cybercrimes and misuses that result into graving emotional and psychological impacts. Aim: This study aims to detect the emotional impacts of cyberbullying victimization among university students in Egypt. Subjects and methods: A total of 6740 students from 28 faculties of Beni-Suef University participated in this cross-sectional survey. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data about the socio-demographics of the participants, their exposure to cyberbullying in the past 6 months and the emotional impacts of the worst incidents they experienced during this period. These emotions were sorrow, disappointment, loneliness, anger, hatred and fear. Results: Anger was the most common response to almost all incidents of cyberbullying victimizations followed by hatred and sorrow (p<0.05). Fear was related to threatening and outing while disappointment was linked to exclusion. Compared to females, males were more likely to show sorrow, disappointment and hatred, and less likely to show fear (p<0.05). Students from rural areas showed more sorrow and hatred emotions (p<0.05) and students attending natural sciences faculties responded with more sorrow, disappointment, anger and hatred, and with less fear (p<0.05). Conclusion: Cyberbulluing victimization carries many negative emotional impacts. In addition to type of incidents, sex of victims, their residence and their faculties may play role in determining the psychological effects of exposure to cyberbullying.
December 2015