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 “LGBT youth are turning online for support,” developmental
psychologist Catherine Bradshaw told Reuters Health. But, “they
still need to have an authentic, in-person relationships in order to
buffer the impact of victimization,” she said.
Bradshaw is the co-director of the Johns Hopkins Center for the
Prevention of Youth Violence and was not involved with the current
study.
Researchers who analyzed two polls with 5,542 American adolescents
found that those who identified as gay, lesbian or queer were more
frequent targets of online bullying than heterosexual youth.
Nearly one in two homosexual youths reported online bullying or
other victimization, compared to one is six heterosexual youths, the
study found.
Adolescents in the study, who ranged in age from 13 to 18, were
randomly selected to receive an email invitation to participate, or
they responded to a Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network
invitation on Facebook.
Sexual minority youths were significantly more likely than straight
youths to rate their online friends as more supportive than their
in-person friends, researchers found.
For example, those who identified as gay, lesbian and queer were
more than twice as likely to perceive their online friends as better
“listeners” than their in-person friends, according to the study
published in Child Abuse and Neglect.
But face-to-face relationships did more to combat bullying, the
research showed.
The odds of being bullied online or offline decreased by 5 percent
with each incremental increase in perceived in-person social
support, the study found.
In-person sexual harassment was also less likely with more in-person
social support.
“Online friendships can have very positive influences,” lead
researcher Michele Ybarra told Reuters Health. “But, within the
context of bullying and sexual harassment victimization, it appears
that offline relationships are what are protective.”
Ybarra is president and research director for the Center for
Innovative Public Health Research in San Clemente, California.
Earlier studies found that bullying – online as well as offline – is
common during adolescence, Ybarra’s article says.
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Prior research has also shown that being bullied can exact a
psychological toll on kids for years by heightening the risk for
depression, anxiety and panic disorder (see Reuters Health story of
February 21, 2013 here: http://reut.rs/1hr5UBE).
Bullies more frequently target kids who identify as gay, lesbian,
bisexual and transgender, prior studies have shown.
In one study, 82 percent of LGBT youth reported being verbally
taunted and 38 percent reported being physically harassed in the
past year at school because of their sexual identity, the current
authors write.
“Rates of bullying and sexual harassment are unacceptably high for
LBGT youth. Unfortunately, social support is not enough to buffer
this victimization,” Ybarra said.
She suggests that it may be easier for sexual minorities to find
like-minded people online than in their classrooms and communities.
“There’s a lot of stigma and judgment and hatred in our country
directed at LBGT youth. So, for some young people, they are able to
find more positive relationships online, where there’s less
judgment,” she said.
Nothing substitutes for a good friend who can offer a hand or a hug,
though.
“The online connection doesn’t appear to be a surrogate for the
in-person relationship,” Bradshaw said.
“At the end of the day, we still need to make sure that all youth,
particularly LGBT youth, have in-person connections to others,” she
said. “The underlying mechanism is about feeling connected to
others.”
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/1roKqfO Child Abuse & Neglect, online
September 2, 2014.
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