Bullying victimization and poor relationships with parents as risk factors of problematic internet use in adolescence

During adolescence, adolescents move away from their parents in order to establish their place in society. Therefore, there are two arenas that have a significant impact on adolescents; the family and the social one. Adolescents’ intensive internet use leads to concern about Problematic Internet Use (PIU) (Siciliano et al., 2015). Therefore, the goal of this study was to examine if stressful environments such as being a victim of bullying and/ or cyberbullying, and poor relationships with parents could be linked directly and indirectly to PIU. Data were collected from a representative sample of 1000 Israeli adolescents aged 12–17 (53% females, average age 14.19 (SD=1.34)). Measures included demographics, a short problematic internet use test, relationships with parents' questionnaire, cyberbullying scale and, separately, a traditional bullying test. Path analysis model revealed that both poor parent-child communication and being a cyberbullying victim were related to PIU. Correspondingly, Poor parent-child communication had an indirect effect on PIU through bullying and/or cyberbullying victimization. Conversely, both positive mother-child communication and positive father-child communication had an indirect effect on PIU through bullying or cyberbullying victimization, implying that good communication with parents actually can assist reducing bullying victimization and PIU behavior. Limitations, conclusions, and suggestions for further research are discussed.

The study found (Boniel-Nissim & Sasson, 2018) that positive mother-child communication associated with a minor increase in PIU (Problematic internet use) behaviour and positive father-child communication had no association to PIU. The findings indicated that poor parent-child communication increased PIU behaviours. positive mother-child communication and/or father-child communication can serve as a protective factor against PIU, through reducing the chance of being a victim of bullying/cyberbullying. At the same time, poor communication with parents serves as a risk factor to PIU through bullying and cyberbullying victimization. The findings emphasize that adolescents that live in a stressful environment are more susceptible to PIU. As the evidence indicated, the parent-child relationship is a key factor in assisting adolescents to overcome this complex stage in their life by maintaining open and supportive communication.