Parental Regulation and Online Activities: Examining factors that influence a Youth's potential to become a Victim of Online Harassment

IntroductionInterest in research related to Internet-based deviance has increased dramatically over the last decade. One area in which interest has increased equally among both academics and practitioners alike is the realm of online harassment, which is sometimes referred to as cyberbullying. With some estimates claiming that as many as 97% of all youth use the Internet on a regular basis (Ybarra & Mitchell, 2007), it is easy to understand why the topic is gaining interest. It is believed that these youths are using the Internet for playing games and communicating with friends (Ybarra & Mitchell, 2004b; Subrahmanyam & Greenfield, 2008), maintaining online blogs concerning their lives and interests (Mitchell, Wolak, & Finkelhor, 2008), and using social networking sites to develop and maintain relationships (Ybarra & Mitchell, 2008; Dilmac, 2009). Each of these behaviors could potentially lead a young person to encounter harassment or bullying. The Internet behaviors of young people could potentially cause them severe harm, with some recent media reports linking cyberbullying and online harassment to suicide-related deaths and attempted suicides among juveniles (Bhat, 2008; Ruedy, 2008).In discussing online harassment and cyberbullying it is important to understand what is meant by the terms. Hinduja and Patchin (2008) define cyberbullying as "willful and repeated harm inflicted through the medium of electronic text" (p.131), while Ybarra and Mitchell (2004) define online harassment as "an overt, intentional act of aggression towards another person online" (p.1308). For purposes of the current work the term online harassment will be used, but it should be noted that studies in this area have used the terms interchangeably, with the exception being Wolak, Mitchell, and Finkelhor's (2007) argument that online harassment does not meet the traditional definition of bullying because of an absence of repetition and a lack of physical aggression in terms of the online behaviors. The current work seeks to add to an emerging body of literature by examining several Internet-related activities and parental regulation behaviors in order to determine whether these factors influence the likelihood of a youth indicating that they have been a victim of online harassment. Before examining the current analysis, however, it is important to briefly examine the literature on online harassment and the various factors that have been found to influence online victimization.Past Studies of Online HarassmentPast studies on the frequency of online harassment have found differing rates of victimization and offending. For example, Bhat (2008) reported that studies of Australian youth indicated as many as 42% of youth had been harassed online, while Hinduja and Patchin (2008) found that 36% of girls and 32% of boys indicated that they have been victims of online harassment. Wolak, Mitchell, and Finkelhor (2007) were more conservative in their findings, indicating that approximately 9% of their nation-wide sample indicated that they had been victimized by online harassment. These differences could be attributable to sampling methodologies but it also just as likely that these differences could be attributed to what Wolak, Mitchell and Finkelhor (2007) discussed as a lack of "standard definitions of online harassment" (p. S51).With the increasing numbers of youth moving their activities to the Internet there is believed to be a growing number of potential victims being introduced to the technology every day (Gillespie, 2006). Keith and Martin (2005) noted that parents have begun providing cellular telephones to their children in an effort to make them more accessible and better prepared to handle emergency situations. In the course of doing this, however, they may have unintentionally provided a new tool to be used in the electronic harassment of their child or someone else's child. While historically online harassment may have been viewed as a nuisance or a mere inconvenience there is a growing acceptance that online harassment may move beyond mere annoyance and actually cause serious psychological harm to youthful victims, up to and including a deterioration of their physical health (Ybarra & Mitchell, 2004; Wang, Iannotti, & Nansel, 2009). …