Filipino youth experience a wider range of bullying and harassment on social media than earlier studies, a research from De La Salle University (DLSU) has pointed out.
The DLSU study is based on a two-year research project covering Metro Manila, Batangas, Negros Occidental, and Misamis Occidental, and in a report titled “How Filipino Youth Identify and Act on Bullying and Harassment on Social Media” it was found that cyberbullying could be aimed not only at individuals, but also at groups, ideas, or beliefs.
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The project involved in-depth interviews with 152 Filipino youth aged 15 to 24 across different genders and educational status and the DLSU study was led by Prof. Cheryll Soriano
“We wanted to go beyond official definitions of social media bullying and harassment and hear what young people themselves had to say,” Cheryll Soriano said.
The study found three dimensions that young people use to identify bullying and harassment online: targets, acts, and spaces and the study noted that although victimization usually manifests through direct attacks on individuals, “the emphasis on groups and ideas as targets extends the argument that online bullying is an inter-group phenomenon and involves social processes.”
