Cyberbullying victimization and the COVID-19 pandemic: a routine activity perspective

ABSTRACTThe COVID-19 pandemic-induced shift to online learning resulted in students spending more time online while quarantining. Using data collected before and during the pandemic from representative samples of eighth graders, we explored differences in cyberbullying victimization, including factors in students' daily lives that may contribute to cyberbullying, before and during COVID-19 through a routine activity lens. We found that students were more likely to experience cyberbullying during the pandemic than before and that parental guardianship, target visibility, and characteristics of victims help explain this difference. These findings add to our understanding of the unequal impact the pandemic may have on different groups while underlining the importance of parental guardianship and collaborative intervention.KEYWORDS: CyberbullyingCOVID-19routine activity theorymiddle school Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Data availability statementDue to the nature of this research, participants of this study did not agree for their data to be shared publicly, so supporting data is not available.Additional informationFundingFunding for this project has been provided by the Department for Health and Social Services, Division of Substance Abuse and Mental Health through the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).Notes on contributorsWenjin WangRachael Schilling is a criminology PhD candidate at the University of Delaware and a research assistant at the Center for Drug and Health Studies. Her research interests include violence prevention, reproductive justice, and victimization.Wenjin Wang is currently a Post-doc Research Associate at National School of Development, Peking University in Beijing, China. She obtained her PhD in Sociology from the University of Delaware. Her areas of interest include health inequality, aging, and deviance.