Engl. transl.: Online Activities and Risk Behaviors among Adolescents in the Virtual Environment

Internet addiction and cyberbullying among youth are phenomena that show a significant increase owing to the development of technology and the wide accessibility of the Internet. Research was conducted among adolescents (N= 352) in 9 randomly selected highschools in Croatia, with the aim of investigating the relationship between habitual Internet use and online risk behaviors among adolescents.The standardized measuring instruments used in the research were the Internet addiction test (Young, 1998) and The European Cyberbullying Intervention Project Questionnaire (Del Reyetal., 2015) and questions about sociodemographic characteristics of respondents and online activities. The results show that 36.2% of the participants exhibit different symptoms of Internet addiction, while 50.7% of them partake in various forms of cyberbullying. Furthermore, it is established that the amount of time spent on the Internet on instant messaging, watching movies/ videos, listening to music and playing online games correlates both with Internet addiction and with participating in cyberbullying among young people. The research confirmed the assumptions of the theory of routine activities and the results indicate that perpetrators of cyberbullying show a tendency to risky behavior also in other online activities. The paper presents the relationship between the level of Internet addiction and experience of cyberbullying and provides guidelines for future research in this area.

Teenagers spend between 3 and 4 hours a day listening to music, watching movies, being on social media and sending instant messages (WhatsApp and Viber). There is a difference between boys and girls - girls spend more time watching movies, listening to music, doing homework, etc., while boys spend more time playing video games, watching pornography, gambeling, chating and on forums. 63,8 % of participants are not in the risk of becoming addicted, but for the 1/3 of participants, there are signs of internet addiction. There si about 10% of students who are victims to cyberbullying, and almost the same number of bullies, but also, 27,5% of participants admitted they are both victims and bullies. Children who spend more time instant messaging are the ones who are more likely to participate in cyberbullying, while those who spend more time using social media are the ones who are more likely to become victims. (translated by the coder)