Brief Treatment and Crisis Intervention Advance Access originally published online on June 29, 2005
Brief Treatment and Crisis Intervention 2005 5(3):279-289; doi:10.1093/brief-treatment/mhi020
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Original Article |
Perceptions of Cyberstalking Among College Students
From the School of Nursing, The College of New Jersey (Alexy), Boston College (Burgess), Data Integrity, Inc. (Baker), and Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey (Smoyak)
Contact author: Eileen M. Alexy, Assistant Professor, The College of New Jersey, School of Nursing, 2000 Pennington Road, PO Box 7718, Ewing, NJ 08628-0718. E-mail: alexy{at}tcnj.edu.
This article contributes to a growing body of research investigating the phenomenon of cyberstalking. Participants consisted of 100 students from a state university and 656 students from a large private university. Data were gathered from students about responses to a cyberstalking scenario and their use and experiences with the Internet. Furthermore, an analysis and comparison of students who reported having been stalked to those who had been cyberstalked was completed. An unexpected finding was that male students were statistically more likely than female students to have been cyberstalked, and Caucasian males had the highest correlation. The conclusion indicates that for those individuals who were cyberstalked, the stalking perpetrator was most likely to be a former intimate partner. Recommendations for mental health professionals are provided.
KEY WORDS: cyberstalking, stalking, Internet crime, online crime, harassment