IMPACT OF CYBERBULLYING ON PSYCHOLOGICAL HEALTH OF ADOLESCENTS

Cyberbullying is becoming a serious and harmful social problem, where India stands third behind China and Singapore. It leads to physical, emotional, psychological and behavioural problems. Psychological consequences such as low self-esteem, increased anxiety and higher level of depression are the most unfavourable outcome as it cannot be recovered easily. The study was done to examine the impact of cyberbullying on psychological health (self-esteem, anxiety and depression), of adolescents in Ahmedabad city of Gujarat state. The sample consisted of 240 respondents (120 boys and 120 girls), from standard VII to XII of two private co-educational English medium schools. Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1965) and The Beck Youth Inventories (Beck et al., 2005) were used to elicit the data. The findings indicate that, nearly fifteen percent (14.17%) and seven (6.67 %) percent respondents were involved in cyberbullying in their lifetime and the last thirty days, respectively. Psychological health of involved respondents was low, indicating low self-esteem and moderate level of depression and anxiety. The cyberbullying and psychological health were found significantly, associated with each other. Negative association for self-esteem and positive association of anxiety and depression were found. Psychological health (self-esteem, depression and anxiety) of involved and not involved respondents, differ significantly. Overall, it can be concluded that, cyber bullying has negative impact on the psychological health of adolescents.