CYBER BULLYING: A RESEARCH ON UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

Today, the widespread use of information and communication technologies brings with it new and different problems. One of these problems is cyberbullying, which is expressed as insult, humiliation, social exclusion, threat, exposure or disturbing behavior in virtual environments. Cyberbullying behavior is a problem that has significant effects on victims. The purpose of this study is to reveal the prevalence of cyberbullying, the means of cyberbullying, the reactions of victims to cyberbullying, and the effects of cyberbullying on victims. The sample of the study consists of 610 students studying at the Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences of a university. The study is a descriptive research and questionnaire technique was used to collect study data. According to the results obtained, 41.8% of the participants have been exposed to cyberbullying at least once in the six month. In the tools in which cyberbullying is applied, the first three ranks are e-mail, social networking sites and messages, respectively. In addition, when the effects of cyberbullying on victims are examined, it is seen that it causes problems such as anger, anxiety, feeling sad, sleep and concentration problems. These results show that some precautions should be taken to prevent cyberbullying.