20.1% Experienced Online Bullying
26.4% Also Report Perpetration
Youth Smartphone Usage Time,
3-4 Hours on Weekdays, 6 Hours on Weekends Increased
As the severity of school violence worsens day by day, it has been found that one in five adolescents has experienced bullying or verbal abuse online.
On the 10th, the Korea Youth Policy Institute released a report titled "Deriving School Violence Prevention and Response Measures through Analysis of School Violence Patterns in Media," based on a survey conducted last November involving 1,038 participants, including 508 middle school students, 507 high school students, and 23 out-of-school youths. According to the report, 20.1% of youths responded affirmatively to the question, "In the past six months, has anyone excluded, insulted, or hurt your feelings in an online space?"
Regarding the same question, 12.2% answered that "someone continued to send emails or messages despite my dislike, or kept visiting my blog or social networking services (SNS) to leave posts or photos." More than 10% also reported experiences such as "being prevented from leaving a chat room on SNS (like KakaoTalk), being insulted, or being blocked from participating in conversations," and "having cyber game money, smartphone data, or game items forcibly taken away."
As for experiences as online perpetrators, 26.4% of respondents admitted to excluding, insulting, or hurting others' feelings in online spaces. 16.3% of youths confessed to continuing to send emails or messages or visiting SNS to leave posts or photos despite the other party expressing dislike. Additionally, 17.4% reported having blocked others from leaving messenger or internet chats and interfering with their participation. The primary targets were friends (32.8%), followed by strangers (unspecified individuals, 29.4%) and people met online (13.1%).
The average daily smartphone usage time for youths was highest at 3 to 4 hours on weekdays (21.5%) and over 6 hours on weekends (40.1%). Furthermore, the survey found that lower academic performance and household income, as well as less parental interest in their children's media use, correlated with longer smartphone usage times among youths.
The study also revealed that youths are vulnerable to the negative effects of media because they can easily access harmful content, YouTube, online games, and OTT (real-time video streaming services). 61.5% of respondents said they are easily exposed to violent content on YouTube, while over 50% reported frequently encountering hate speech against specific ethnic groups or groups and sexually explicit content on YouTube. Regarding OTT platforms, 54.7% said they are easily exposed to violent content, and 49.6% reported exposure to sexually explicit content.
The research team emphasized, "To minimize youth harm from online harmful content, media literacy education should be conducted from an early age," adding, "It is necessary to use AI (artificial intelligence) technology to block exposure to harmful content and strengthen media education for parents."
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