Addiction to New Technologies and Cyber-Bullying in the Costa Rican Context
Addiction to new technologies (Internet, Smartphone and video games) as well as cyber-aggression present a growing incidence at a global level. A correlational investigation is proposed with a sample of N = 127 Costa Rican adolescents, with a mean age of 16.32 years, being 67 men and 60 women. The objective is to determine the prevalence of Internet, Smartphone and video game addiction and its close relationship with cyberbullying (cyber-victim role, cyber-aggressor role and mixed role) in the Costa Rican context. The results show a high rate of abusive use (connection time) on the Internet (Mean = 3,213, SD = 1,301) and “Smartphone” (Mean = 2,252, SD = 1,491), as well as the correlation study, the regressions multiple, backwards backward elimination method and the network analysis show how the behavior of cyber-bullies is mediated by 14.6% by “Lack of control Smartphone” (Standard Error = 0.059; Standardized = 0.382, t = 4.623, p < .001) and by 63.3% for “Escape and social problem video-games” (Standard Error = 0.102; Standardized = 0.612, t = 9.088, p <.001) while that of the victims by 35.9% for "Escape and social problem video-games" (Standard Error = 0.080; Standardized = 0.455, t = 5.108, p <.001); 14.8% for "Lack of control Smartphone" (Standard Error = 0.035; Standardized = 0.385, t = 4.667, p = <.001) and 6.9% for "Lack of control Internet" (Standard Error = 0.032; Standardized = 0.263, t = 3.042, p = 0.003). In addition, there is a strong relationship between holding both the role of cyber-victim and cyber-aggressor (r = 0.81, p <0.001), developing feelings of revenge and lack of empathy. The practical implications, the relevance of the socio-demographic and social explanatory variables of both phenomena are discussed. It is concluded, with the evidence of an explanatory and close relationship to the phenomena of cyber-victimization, cyber-aggression and addiction to the Internet, Smartphone and video games.