Impact of Parental Neglect on Cyber-Victimization: Mediating Role of Social Media Addiction among Adolescents South Punjab Pakistan

Abstract

This research paper has explored the connection between parental neglect and cyber-victimization among teenagers in South Punjab, Pakistan, and how the social media addiction mediates this relationship. Parental neglect has been identified as one of the psychosocial risk factors that affect the behaviors of adolescents online and their susceptibility to digital harm. As the use of social media is growing at a rapid pace, teens become more vulnerable to cyber threats, such as victimization. Social media addiction can also contribute to this vulnerability by exposing individuals to more online and decreasing their self-regulation. The design was a cross-sectional quantitative design. The sample consisted of adolescents (14-19 years old) in South Punjab, Pakistan, schools and colleges. Purposive convenient sampling was used to collect data using standardized questionnaires. The number of participants was both male and female adolescents who used social media extensively on a daily basis. All measures of the study were found to have acceptable internal consistency through the reliability analysis. Statistical analyses included correlation, regression, mediation, and independent samples t-test. Results showed that there were positive correlations with parental neglect and social media addiction and cyber-victimization. Parental neglect was an important predictor of cyber-victimization and accounted for a minor amount of variance. This relationship was partially mediated by social media addiction, which means that neglected adolescents have a higher risk of becoming addictive online, which puts them at risk of cyber-victimization. The difference by gender indicated that males were more socially addicted to media and cyber-victimized, whereas there was no significant difference by gender in the parental neglect cases. The research notes that more parental intervention and control of online activities among the adolescents is necessary. Awareness initiatives in schools and online literacy interventions are suggested to decrease risky online practices and cyber-victimization.