Cyberbullying among adolescents: implications for empirical research.

Research into the causes and consequences of cyberbullying among adolescents has exploded in the past 5 years [1]. However, much of the literature is largely descriptive in nature and/or suffers from methodological limitations associated with accessing and studying young people who are engaged in constantly changing high-tech behaviors. These challenges notwithstanding, a clearer picture is beginning to emerge detailing the social and psychological maladies linked to experiences with cyberbullying. Youth who experience cyberbullying, both as victims and as offenders, report lower self-esteem [2,3], higher depression and suicidal ideation [3e5], and increased school problems and participation in other problematic offline behaviors [6e8]. It is also true that traditional bullying still occurs with more frequency than cyberbullying [3], although the gap could be narrowing [9]. In this issue of the Journal, Gámez-Guadix and colleagues [10] further advance our understanding of the correlates of cyberbullying by examining its connection to psychological and behavioral problems using longitudinal datada rarity in adolescent research generally and bullying research specifically. Results from this analysis comport with findings from existing cross-sectional research: namely, that youth who experience cyberbullying are also going through a host of other personal challenges. While Gámez-Guadix et al give us more confidence about the nature of those relationships, many questions remain unanswered. Their use of structural equation modeling to examine relationships using longitudinal data better ensures that the hypothesized temporal ordering exists in practice, but it is possible that the associations observed were simply spurious. Moreover, even though research has linked cyberbullying to depression, it remains unclear whether youth who experience cyberbullying become depressed, or if those who are depressed make good targets for cyberbullying. Do teens experiencing depression behave in ways online that expose themselves as good marks? Similarly, do teens who are being cyberbullied turn to illicit substances to self-medicate or engross themselves in problematic online behaviors to distract themselves from the torment, or are drug-using and Internetmisbehaving youth good targets for harassment? Additional data points would be necessary to more accurately confirm the reciprocal nature of these relationships. If the relationships