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. 2018 Nov 5;15(11):2471.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph15112471.

Internet Risks: An Overview of Victimization in Cyberbullying, Cyber Dating Abuse, Sexting, Online Grooming and Problematic Internet Use

Juan M Machimbarrena  1 , Esther Calvete  2 , Liria Fernández-González  3 , Aitor Álvarez-Bardón  4 , Lourdes Álvarez-Fernández  5 , Joaquín González-Cabrera  6
Affiliations

Internet Risks: An Overview of Victimization in Cyberbullying, Cyber Dating Abuse, Sexting, Online Grooming and Problematic Internet Use

Juan M Machimbarrena et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

The advance of digital media has created risks that affect the bio-psycho-social well-being of adolescents. Some of these risks are cyberbullying, cyber dating abuse, sexting, online grooming and problematic Internet use. These risks have been studied individually or through associations of some of them but they have not been explored conjointly. The main objective is to determine the comorbidity between the described Internet risks and to identify the profiles of victimized adolescents. An analytical and cross-sectional study with 3212 participants (46.3% males) from 22 Spanish schools was carried out. Mean age was 13.92 ± 1.44 years (range 11⁻21). Assessment tools with adequate standards of reliability and validity were used. The main results indicate that the most prevalent single risk is cyberbullying victimization (30.27%). The most prevalent two-risk associations are cyberbullying-online grooming (12.61%) and cyberbullying-sexting (5.79%). The three-risk combination of cyberbullying-sexting-grooming (7.12%) is highlighted, while 5.49% of the adolescents present all the risks. In addition, four profiles are distinguished, with the profile Sexualized risk behaviour standing out, with high scores in grooming and sexting and low scores in the rest of the risks. Determining the comorbidity of risks is useful for clinical and educational interventions, as it can provide information about additional risks.

Keywords: Internet risks; adolescence; cyber dating abuse; cyberbullying; grooming; polyvictimization; prevalence; problematic Internet use; sexting.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Classes resulting from the latent profile analysis (standardized scores).
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