| Objective: The present study was based on the General Aggressive Model of cyberbullying and the Frustration-Attack Hypothesis,and uses a combination of horizontal and vertical methods to explore the effects of high school students’ mobile phone addiction,cyberbullying victimization,and cyberbullying perpetration on depression.Methods: The study adopts the follow-up study design,taking the students of senior middle schools in a prefecture-level city in southwest PRC as the research participants,using the Smartphone Addiction Scale,the European Cyberbullying Intervention Project Questionnaire(Chinese Vision)and the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale as the survey tools,conducting two follow-up surveys at a one-year interval,and collecting 1213 valid participants at last.Results: Study 1: To examine the sequential mediating effect of the cyberbullying victimization and the perpetration between mobile phone addiction and depression of senior high school students at the horizontal level,the results showed that:(1)mobile phone addiction was positively correlated with and high school students’ depression;(2)cyberbullying victimization and the cyberbullying perpetration significantly mediated the relation between mobile phone addiction and high school students’ depression,which contained tow mediating paths—the independent mediating effects of cyberbullying victimization and the sequential mediating effect of cyberbullying victimization and the cyberbullying perpetration.(3)there are gender differences in the sequential mediation model,and boys who are victims of cyberbullying are more likely to develop into cyberbullying perpetrators than girls.Study 2: To examine the longitudinal sequential mediating effect of the cyberbullying victimization and the perpetration on the relationship between mobile phone addiction and depression of senior high school students at the longitudinal level,and to verify whether the relationship holds over time.The results of the cross-lagged study showed that:(1)Mobile phone addiction at T1 time point could positively predict mobile phone addiction and cyberbullying victimization at T2 time point;(2)The victimization of cyberbullying at T1 could positively predict cyberbullying perpetration at T2;(3)The cyberbullying perpetration at T1 time point could negatively predict T2 depression.Therefore,the victimization and perpetration of cyberbullying have a cross-time sequential mediating effect between mobile phone addiction and depression of high school students.Conclusions: The conclusion of the study explains the mechanism of the change from victims to perpetrators of cyberbullying.Although the cyberbullying perpetration has played a role in alleviating negative emotions for victims,the final result will promote the spread of cyberbullying,thus affecting the health and harmony of the entire online environment.Therefore,in order to prevent the spread of cyberbullying on the Internet,on the one hand,we should start from the source,alleviate the level of high school students’ mobile phone addiction through various intervention measures to reduce the risk of cyberbullying victimization and relieve depression,on the other hand,help the victims improve their self-control ability,deal with the bullying experience reasonably,and correct the negative emotion,which is the key to preventing high school students from turning the victims into perpetrators of cyberbullying and to building a healthy network. |
