The Impact of M-Bullying on Self-Esteem and Subjective Well Being

Abstract

The mobile phone has become a symbol of membership and exclusion, providing opportunities for connection with friends and a means to establish identity and difference with social networks. However, there is also a disturbing trend of bullying including the use of the mobile phone. This paper investigates the occurrence of bullying via mobile phones (m-bullying) on high school students and its impact on self-esteem and subjective well-being. Additionally, it examines gender differences in terms of occurrences of m-bullying, levels of distress and impacts on self-esteem. A cross sectional mall intercept survey was used to collect a total of 218 responses from senior high school students who used a mobile phone. The results of the study suggest that the experience of m-bullying is widespread among high school student. Consistent with previous research indicating a link between self-esteem and subjective well-being, our findings support this relationship in the mobile phone context.