Prevalence of cyberbullying victimization among Pakistani Youth

Cyberbullying has seen an exponential increase in the education sector in recent years. With most of the literature originating from the developed and/or western countries, there is a dearth of reported studies in different social-cultural settings of the developing countries. In this context, the present study measures cyberbullying victimization amongst university students in Pakistan. The targeted population was six universities in the Sindh province. The data was collected using Cyberbullying Scale, employing the multistage stratified sampling technique. The study was carried out on a sample of 273 students in the age bracket of 18–25 years to ascertain cyberbullying differences in terms of demographics, digital divide, and socioeconomic variables. The results show that cyberbullying is prevalent in the country. Substantial differences were found with respect to languages, access to the Internet, and socioeconomic status with small effect sizes. However, no significant difference was found with respect to gender, age, and the area they belong to (urban or rural). The results of the study imply that there is a need for support centers in academic settings to deal with the cyberbullying situation. These centers should develop and implement anti-bullying interventions. They should also increase student awarness of preventive measures and coping strategies. •Self-reported cyber bullying was examined among 328 Pakistani university students.•Almost 90% of the participants were cyberbullied.•Participants belonging to higher socioeconomic status and with lower digital divide were significantly bullied more.•No significant differences were found in terms of demographic characteristics.