Electronic Dating Violence and Teens – our 2010 research findings

Electronic Dating Violence and Teens - our 2010 research findings Cyberbullying Research Center

We have recently shared that electronic dating violence among teenagers is one of the facets of adolescent technology misuse we are exploring. Please see the previous referenced blog for foundational information. Today, I wanted to share with you our research results from our 2010 data. This is based on a random sample of approximately 4,400 11-18 year-old youth from a large school district in the southern United States. The demographic characteristics of the sample were statistically representative of the entire population of middle school and high school students in this district. If you would like further information about methodology, please let me know.

VICTIMIZATION

• 10% of youth said a romantic partner has prevented them from using a computer or cell phone.

• 6% of boys and girls say their romantic partner posted something publicly online to make fun of, threaten, or embarrass them.

• 10.4% of boys and 9.8% of girls said they received a threatening cell phone message from their romantic partner.

• 5.4% of boys and 3.4% of girls said their romantic partner uploaded or shared a humiliating of harassing picture of them online or through their cell phone

OFFENDING

• 7% of youth admitted that they prevented their romantic partner from using a computer or cell phone.

• 6% of boys and 4% of girls say they posted something publicly online to make fun of, threaten, or embarrass their romantic partner.

• About 7% of youth said they sent a threatening cell phone message to their romantic partner.

• 5% of boys and 3% of girls said they uploaded or shared a humiliating of harassing picture of their romantic partner online or through their cell phone

RELATIONSHIPS

• Victims of traditional (offline) dating violence are significantly more likely to be victims of electronic forms of dating violence (r=.75) than those who have not experienced offline bullying

• Those who admit to engaging in traditional dating violence also report engaging in electronic forms of dating violence (r=.77)

• Victims of dating violence (r=.51) and specifically electronic forms of dating violence (r=.64) are significantly more likely to also be victims of cyberbullying

• Youth who are cyberbullied are 3.6 times as likely to experience electronic teen dating violence

• Youth who admit to engaging in dating violence (r=.52) and specifically electronic forms of dating violence (r=.65) also admit to engaging in cyberbullying

• Youth who share their passwords with their significant other are nearly three times as likely to be victims of electronic dating violence

• Older students reported more experience with dating violence

We will share more about these findings and their implications in the immediate future.

7 Comments

  1. My research partners and I have done a study on sex differences in cyberbullying and have used your studies to further our knowledge on the subject. We were wondering if you could send us more on the methodology part of this study.

    Thank You,

    Cody W.

  2. This may be a serious issue, but that's a horrible graph. If you look more closely at it, you'll notice that it *doesn't* indicate an increasing trend — simply that 12th graders are more experienced with dating violence than 6th graders. This really shouldn't come as a surprise, and it would be far more alarming if the opposite were true. Similarly, the units on the graph's vertical axis are meaningless, and you never even mention what their "Summary Scale" means.

  3. I believe the internet has a big effect on the young men in today’s world. They tend to have the see stuff and want stuff syndrome, which is what I’m going to refer to it as. It usually involves couples and their boyfriend wants, which is usually something the girlfriend is not use to doing. Things such as different clothing which are more revealing, sexual things such as movements are also included. Things boys tend to do are to want to do everything they see, because it may look satisfying or fun. Well girls are usually not comfortable interacting and doing those following things. Internet raises and grows up people entirely wrong and too fast. Parents are not even accessed the opportunity in raising their child, especially if he/she is glued to a computer. Research conducted by Sparkler for Microsoft Advertising across the UK found that 99% of young males go online either every day or nearly every day, and half of them already use their mobile phones to do so. And 80% even go so far as to say that they would be lost without it.

  4. Electronic dating violence is a form of cyberbullying that commonly occurs among teens. The Cyberbullying Research Center (CRC) conducted a study on this issue in an effort to raise the awareness of this common problem. The CRC defines electronic dating violence as “emotional or psychological harm in a romance relationship perpetrated through the use of computers, cell phones, or other electronic devices. In their 2010 study, the CRC randomly sampled 4,400 teenage students in the US about electronic dating violence. The results were reported on the basis of victimization, offending, and relationships. It was found that a small percentage of the youth were prevented by a romantic partner from using electronic devices, more boys than girls reported having received threatening cell phone messages from a romantic partner and had a harassing picture of them uploaded online.

  5. I am not surprised by the findings of the connection between dating violence and cyber bullying. Communicating through emails, texts, and messages through social networks seem so much easier to express our feelings and has somehow been embedded into our heads that just because it is written through a text or email it is not any type of serious abuse. The need for expressing ourselves through these means has had negative connotations. The research on this page just shows how electronic dating violence has escalated. You can see on the chart that this sort of violence increase as teens gets older. What do you think happens when these teens become adults and are used to expressing this type of behavior?

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