The internet and adolescent safety: Peer influence and gender difference as potential risk-factors of cyberbullying among Nigerian secondary school adolescents

Abstract

While adolescents in many nations across the world are getting exposed to various forms of cyberbullying and online harms, little attention has been devoted to examining the implications of gender and peer influence in secondary school adolescents’ involvement in cyberbullying in Nigeria. Addressing this void in the literature, the present study investigated the internet use pattern and peer victimisation among 992 secondary school adolescents in the fourth to sixth (senior) grades (age ranging from 15 to 17 years; males = 55.9 %). The data were collected using a questionnaire with a very high alpha coefficient of α = .92 and analysed using SPSS (v. 22). The findings revealed an alarmingly high incidence level (76 %) and that more male adolescents were involved in cyber victimisation and more female adolescents in cyber predation, a quite surprising phenomenon as far as the Nigerian school context is concerned. The results of the study highlight the importance of gender difference, peer influence and the degree of internet use as potential risk factors of cyberbullying among Nigerian in-school adolescents.