To tell or not to tell? Youth’s responses to unwanted Internet experiences
Open accessAbstract
This study is one of the first that investigated youth’s response to unwanted Internet experiences, not only for those youth who were bothered or distressed but for all youth who reported the experience. Three types of response were examined: telling someone about the incident and ending the unwanted situation by active or passive coping. Responses to the following unwanted Internet experiences were analysed: Sexual solicitation, online harassment and unwanted exposure to pornography. The study was based on data from the Third Youth Internet Safety Survey (YISS-3), a telephone survey with a nationally representative U.S. sample of 1,560 Internet users, ages 10 to 17, and their caretakers. Youth’s responses to unwanted Internet experiences differ depending on the type of unwanted experiences, whether they are distressed or have other negative reactions caused by the incident and – to some degree – other youth characteristics and incident characteristics. For example, not all youth who are distressed tell someone and not all youth who tell someone are distressed. Also, the reasons for telling may differ depending on whom they tell, and youth tell somebody less often about their victimization if they also are online perpetrators, but of different types of unwanted Internet experiences. Internet safety information for parents and parents’ active mediation of Internet safety does not seem to result in youth telling more often about unwanted Internet experiences.
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In the event of disclosure, peers are preferred over adults as confidants.
“Furthermore, in the event of disclosure, peers are preferred over adults as confidants (e.g., Priebe et al., 2013).”
From Why They Speak Up (or Don’t): Reasons For and Against Cybergrooming Disclosure Among Adolescent Victims (2025) · cites this paper as Priebe et al., 2013
Results, Table 1 (page unavailable), does not show a general preference for peers: more youth told a friend than a parent about sexual solicitation, but more told a parent than a friend about online harassment and unwanted exposure to pornography. The Results text says youth most often told “a friend or parent,” not that peers were preferred over adults. (LLM, conf=0.88)
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- Authors
- Priebe, G., Mitchell, K. J., & Finkelhor, D.
- Affiliations
- University of New Hampshire (US)
- Venue
- Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace
- Publisher
- Masaryk University Press
- Published
- 2013-03-01
- Volume
- 7
- Issue
- 1
- ISSN
- 1802-7962 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W1988150322
- Cited by
- 32
- References
- 22
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 1 · 2021: 4 · 2019: 2 · 2018: 2 · 2017: 4 · 2016: 1 · 2015: 4 · 2014: 2
- FWCI
- 3.49
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- diamond
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by-nc-nd
- Locations
- Cyberpsychology Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- University of New Hampshire Scholars Repository (University of New Hampshire at Manchester) (submittedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
- Lund University Publications (Lund University) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- European Commission
- Masarykova Univerzita
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Bullying, Victimization, and Aggression
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Cybercrime and Law Enforcement Studies
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Impact of Technology on Adolescents
- Keywords
- youth, disclosure, coping, sexual solicitation, online harassment, cyber victimization, parental mediation
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