Developmental Trajectories of Cybervictimization Among Canadian Adolescents: The Impact of Socializing Online and Sharing Personal Information

Abstract

The goal of the present study was to investigate the developmental trajectories of cybervictimization, as well as to identify how risk factors such as the sharing of personal information online and engaging in online socializing was related to cybervictimization from age 13 to 16 for Canadian adolescents. Participants included 354 adolescents from the Lower Mainland of British Columbia who were in Grades 6 and 7 at Wave 1 of the study (193 boys, Mage = 13.65 years, SD = 0.71 year). Three years of longitudinal data on cybervictimization, sharing personal information online and time spent socializing online were collected from self‐reports surveys. Results from latent class growth analysis identified three different trajectories of cybervictimization: a moderate‐increasing trajectory (49 adolescents, 12.7% of the sample), low‐increasing trajectory (292 adolescents, 75.8% of the sample) and high‐decreasing trajectory (13 adolescents, 3.44% of the sample). Adolescents who reported higher scores on sharing personal information and socializing online were more likely to be in moderate‐increasing subgroup. This study makes a substantial contribution to our understanding of the developmental trajectories of cybervictimization in a Western context, from late childhood through to early adolescent.