To tell or not to tell? Youth’s responses to unwanted Internet experiences

Vol.7,No.1(2013)
Special issue: Children in cyberspace: Opportunities, risks and safety

Gisela Priebe Kimberly J. Mitchell David Finkelhor

https://doi.org/10.5817/CP2013-1-6

How to Cite:
Priebe, G., Mitchell, K. J., & Finkelhor, D. (2013). To tell or not to tell? Youth’s responses to unwanted Internet experiences. Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace, 7(1), Article 6. https://doi.org/10.5817/CP2013-1-6
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Abstract
This study is one of the first that investigated youth’s response to unwanted Internet experiences, not only for those youth who were bothered or distressed but for all youth who reported the experience. Three types of response were examined: telling someone about the incident and ending the unwanted situation by active or passive coping. Responses to the following unwanted Internet experiences were analysed: Sexual solicitation, online harassment and unwanted exposure to pornography. The study was based on data from the Third Youth Internet Safety Survey (YISS-3), a telephone survey with a nationally representative U.S. sample of 1,560 Internet users, ages 10 to 17, and their caretakers. Youth’s responses to unwanted Internet experiences differ depending on the type of unwanted experiences, whether they are distressed or have other negative reactions caused by the incident and – to some degree – other youth characteristics and incident characteristics. For example, not all youth who are distressed tell someone and not all youth who tell someone are distressed. Also, the reasons for telling may differ depending on whom they tell, and youth tell somebody less often about their victimization if they also are online perpetrators, but of different types of unwanted Internet experiences. Internet safety information for parents and parents’ active mediation of Internet safety does not seem to result in youth telling more often about unwanted Internet experiences.

Keywords:
coping; disclosure; online harassment; Internet; youth
Author biographies

Gisela Priebe

Author photo Gisela Priebe, PhD, is a researcher at the University of Lund, Sweden, and a lecturer at the Linnæus University, Sweden. She received her PhD in child and adolescent psychiatry from the University of Lund in 2009. Her research focuses on youth sexuality, sexual abuse, Internet behaviour, sexual exploitation of youth and prostitution.

Kimberly J. Mitchell

Author photo Kimberly J. Mitchell, PhD, is a research associate professor of psychology at the Crimes against Children Research Center (CCRC) at the University of New Hampshire. She received her PhD in experimental psychology from the University of Rhode Island in 1998. Her current areas of research include youth Internet victimization and juvenile prostitution, with particular emphasis on the developmental and mental health impact of such experiences.

David Finkelhor

Author photo David Finkelhor, prof., PhD, is director of Crimes against Children Research Center, codirector of the Family Research Laboratory and professor of sociology at the University of New Hampshire. He has been studying the problems of child victimization, child maltreatment and family violence since 1977. He is well known for his conceptual and empirical work on the problem of child sexual abuse. He has also written about child homicide, missing and abducted children, children exposed to domestic and peer violence, and other forms of family violence. In his recent work, he has tried to unify and integrate knowledge about all diverse forms of child victimization in a field he has termed developmental victimology. He is editor and author of 11 books and more than 200 journal articles and book chapters.
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