Children’s Online Safety: Predictive Factors of Cyberbullying and Online Grooming Involvement

Abstract

The increase in the use of the Internet, strongly boosted by the spread of COVID-19, has amplified the risk of involvement in cyberbullying and online grooming among minors. To date, most research on these phenomena has focused on middle and high school students, with fewer studies on younger children. The present study aims to fill this knowledge gap by measuring the spread of cyberbullying and online grooming in a sample of 410 primary school students in the city of Rome and by identifying the main individual and environmental predictors associated with the involvement of children in these phenomena using factor analysis. Results indicate that both cyberbullying and online grooming are widespread among respondents, showing common traits within the four latent dimensions identified. Screen time is among the main predictors of children’s involvement, together with parental supervision, phubbing behaviours, prosocial tendencies and family socio-economic background. These findings highlight the need for further studies on representative samples of this age group, as well as for a greater cooperative effort among schools, parents and caregivers to keep children safe in the virtual world.