Victimización de menores por actos de ciberacoso continuado y actividades cotidianas en el ciberespacio

Résumé

1. Objectives Cybercrime, as a concept joining any type of criminality committed in cyberspace, has acquired unusual protagonism over the last years. It is true that it is not a completely new phenomenon, as the first manifestations appeared almost at the same time that internet took its first steps. However, it has not been until the moment the Net of nets has become popular and a vital sphere for the personal communication, when we have become aware of the fact that we are not dealing with a new type of criminality but with a new space in which a crime takes places. Once again technology modifies our social habits, generates new interests, new necessities, new ways of social communication and new crimes or new ways of committing a crime too. Within the different shapes of cybercriminality detected, the aim of this study has been focused on social cybercriminality and more precisely, in the specific behavior of constant cyberharassment suffered mainly by minors on the internet, not limiting the area of origin of these aggressions to the school environment as it has been the tradition. We have chosen this scope of study because we consider it especially vulnerable and worthy of attention but especially because it is a social group who highly uses ITC. Therefore, taking as a starting point the approach to �daily activities�, this thesis aims to identify risk factors depending on the everyday reality of the victim affecting his or her own configuration as a part within the criminal event, this way allowing us to define better strategies of prevention for the future. 2. Methodology With the creation of a survey of victimization we have asked 2038 minors aged between 12 and 18 about their daily routines on the Internet and the parental monitoring they experienced. All this related to the fact that they had been constantly cyberbullied. Minors were from 20 different Secondary Education schools throughout the Province of Alicante. After carrying out different and varied descriptive analysis we have created a mathematical model through the creation of an Artificial Neural Network. 3. Results All this has allowed us to conclude that minors are easy targets for cyberbullying in the very moment they load, in a conscious or unconscious way, goods onto the cyberspace. And even more so when they make themselves visible by means of interacting, that is to say, when they participate in different means of communication. All this combined with less parental control increases the probability of minors becoming victims of cyberbullying. Results have also revealed, on one hand, that practically the majority of minors carry out risk behavior and not only that, those minors ending up being victims carry them out more frequently. And on the other hand, that there is a multiple combination of factors which will determine the possibility of victimization. We can therefore confirm that minors play an important role in their suitability as victims in cyberspace by loading their goods and also by making themselves visible for other users, on the basis of their daily routine on the Net and also it is critical the role played by the parents or other members of the family acting as capable guardians. All this provides scientific evidence concerning the key issues to be addressed in order to develop appropriate prevention strategies in this area.