Emerging Adults & Selfies: How Self-presentation is Connected to Cyberbullying Victimization

• In Event: Poster Session II

Abstract

It is well-known that selfies are an integral part of self-presentation for many across several platforms of social media (Chua & Chang, 2016). Teenagers or adults are often motivated by self-esteem (Dohnt & Tiggemann, 2006) or other factors such as narcissism (Barry et al, 2015) or boredom (Sung, Lee, Kim & Choi, 2016) and may be subject to unwanted attention because of it. One area of growing concern among emerging adults is seemingly increasing rates of cyberbullying victimization and how it impacts mental health (Sargent et al, 2016). This study explores how selfies and frequency of cyberbullying victimization are related with additional measures of self-esteem (α= .85), depression and suicidal ideation to explore how victimization is internalized by emerging adults (18-25). Participants (N=1, 304) were undergraduate students (18-25 years), mostly female (55.8%) with majority of participants self-identifying as Hispanic (47%). Preliminary results indicate majority of students sometimes (33%) or often (31%) send private selfies with just over 31% reporting cyberbullying victimization. Chi-square analyses indicated a significant interaction between cyberbullying victims and frequency of selfies c2 (2, N= 808) = 27.8, p<. 001. Additional analyses and theoretical discussion will further explore connections between cyberbullying victimization and the selfie phenomena.

Authors

• Tim Oblad, Texas A&M University-Kingsville

• Elizabeth Trejos-Castillo, Texas Tech University

• Elizabeth Massengale, Texas Tech University