Abstract:

With the use of social networking sites, the risk of exposure to online social attacks has increased. This paper aims to present the results of a questionnaire survey focusing on the analysis of problematic social network use among adolescents and young adults. The research sample consists of 2018 respondents aged 15-26 years. The results show that 26.51% of the respondents have been the victim of an attack on a social network (e.g., receiving abusive, intimidating, or threatening messages, sending personal or sensitive information and photos, sending false messages, sending messages or pages with sexual content, blackmailing through obtained intimate photos, enticing to meet, harassment, account theft, etc.). The most common types of attacks were the sending of abusive, intimidating, or threatening messages, and the sending of messages or pages with sexual content. The most typical response to these attacks was to block the perpetrator. The danger in the online environment is most evident in the social area (e.g., social status, prestige, relationships in the community, at work or school, or from peers, etc.). The hypotheses about the dependence of exposure to social networking attacks on the sociodemographic factors of age, gender, and education were tested. The paper further develops the key aspects of the analyzed findings and the need for the continuous strengthening of pedagogical prevention and intervention to address ethical issues of privacy in the digital world both from the victim’s and the attacker’s perspective.

Keywords:

Social networking sites, abuse, prevention, victim, attacker.