College youth and cyberbullying: before and during the Covid-19 pandemic. Cyberbullying and gender during confinement

Abstract

Cyberbullying or cyberbullying has increased considerably due to the massive use of social networks, among other reasons because of confinement. Objectives. The purpose of this research is to know if there are significant differences or similarities in students involved in cyberbullying episodes in roles of perpetuation and victimization before and during the COVID19 pandemic during the years of 2019 and 2020 from gender. Two hundred students (57% female and 43% male) participated. Methodology. Within the methodology, a Cyberbullying Questionnaire (CBQ) was used, which measures participation in cyberbullying, in two of the roles (bully and victimized). The statistical procedure was the calculation of medians for each sample and their comparison using the Mann-Whitney U test. Results. The results showed that there is no significant increase since only in two items of the sexting factor (bullying role) and another item of the incendiary provocation factor (victimization role), there was a significant difference between the two samples applied, concluding and providing information on the increase of cyberbullying.