Department of Clinical, Educational and Health Psychology, Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, University College London, London, UK.
Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London, London, UK.
Psychol Med. 2021 Nov;51(15):2620-2630. doi: 10.1017/S0033291720001178. Epub 2020 May 4.
The rise of social media use in young people has sparked concern about the impact of cyber-victimisation on mental health. Although cyber-victimisation is associated with mental health problems, it is not known whether such associations reflect genetic and environmental confounding.
We used the co-twin control design to test the direct association between cyber-victimisation and multiple domains of mental health in young people. Participants were 7708 twins drawn from the Twins Early Development Study, a UK-based population cohort followed from birth to age 22.
Monozygotic twins exposed to greater levels of cyber-victimisation had more symptoms of internalising, externalising and psychotic disorders than their less victimised co-twins at age 22, even after accounting for face-to-face peer victimisation and prior mental health. However, effect sizes from the most stringent monozygotic co-twin control analyses were decreased by two thirds from associations at the individual level [pooled β across all mental health problems = 0.06 (95% CI 0.03-0.10) v. 0.17 (95% CI 0.15-0.19) in individual-level analyses].
Cyber-victimisation has a small direct association with multiple mental health problems in young people. However, a large part of the association between cyber-victimisation and mental health is due to pre-existing genetic and environmental vulnerabilities and co-occurring face-to-face victimisation. Therefore, preventative interventions should target cyber-victimisation in conjunction with pre-existing mental health vulnerabilities and other forms of victimisation.
社交媒体在年轻人中的兴起引发了人们对网络欺凌对心理健康影响的关注。虽然网络欺凌与心理健康问题有关，但尚不清楚这种关联是否反映了遗传和环境的混杂。
我们使用同卵双胞胎对照设计来检验年轻人中网络欺凌与多个心理健康领域之间的直接关联。参与者是从英国双胞胎早期发展研究中抽取的 7708 对双胞胎，该研究是一个基于人群的队列，从出生一直随访到 22 岁。
在 22 岁时，暴露于更高水平网络欺凌的同卵双胞胎比他们受欺凌程度较低的同卵双胞胎表现出更多的内化、外化和精神病症状，即使考虑到面对面的同伴欺凌和先前的心理健康状况也是如此。然而，来自最严格的同卵双胞胎对照分析的效应大小从个体水平的关联减少了三分之二[所有心理健康问题的 pooled β=0.06（95%CI 0.03-0.10），而个体水平分析的 0.17（95%CI 0.15-0.19）]。
网络欺凌与年轻人的多种心理健康问题存在直接关联。然而，网络欺凌与心理健康之间的大部分关联是由于先前存在的遗传和环境脆弱性以及同时发生的面对面欺凌所致。因此，预防干预措施应针对网络欺凌，并结合先前存在的心理健康脆弱性和其他形式的欺凌。
