Indiscriminate Use of Social Media and Cyber Bullying among Indigenous Australians

Running head: MASTER OF MENTAL HEALTH NURSING
MASTER OF MENTAL HEALTH NURSING
Name of the Student
Name of University
Author’s note

MASTER OF MENTAL HEALTH NURSING
Indiscriminate use of social media and technology in cyber bullying and social safety
among the indigenous Australians
Purpose of research
The purpose of this research is to understand role of the indiscriminate use of social
media and technology in cyber bullying and social safety among the indigenous Australians.
The growth rate of the internet especially the social media networks has become popular
among the young indigenous students of Australia. The indigenous people had always been faced
with social disadvantages. However, they uses social media for communication, sharing
information, generate content and elaborate information. However, the indigenous people of
Australia have lower educational level and this less developed literacy might contribute to the
crimes related to social networking (Garett, Lord & Young, 2016). Apart from its advantages,
social media is often used in cyberbullying, sharing sexually explicit contents and blackmailing ,
posting of anti-secular comments, flaming, impersonation , trickery or exclusion and cyber
stalking (Mahadi et al., 2016). Cyberbullying on social media has been found to be linked with
depressions among the teenagers In order to scrutinize the issue, it is important to understand the
perception of the university indigenous students, who have been found to be the prime victims of
the disadvantages of social media. Thus this research is important.
Context
Digital addiction and sharing of personal and explicit information on the social
networking sites, talking to unknown people via social media has lead go the increase of

MASTER OF MENTAL HEALTH NURSING
cyberbullying among adolescent students. Peer influence regarding the use of social media has
been found to be one of the predisposing factor of crime related to social media (Festl, Scharkow
& Quandt, 2013). The rate of victimisation has been found to be more with more time spend
online (Mahadi et al., 2016). Creation of fake accounts or impersonation of the accounts, buying
illegal things occur in social networking sites. Posting of videos or pictures are common in the
social media. Furthermore, the criminals also post the explicit video of their crimes in the social
networking sites. All these might lead to cyberbullying among the indigenous students.
According to Broll, Dunlop and Crooks, (2018), most of the students who experience
cyber bullying are more likely to be suffering from depression. Often the individuals are bullied
due to their heritage, which can be termed as “ethnic bullying” that effects the youths from other
minority of cultures as well. Many studies have widely documented the physical and the
emotional health of the adolescents (Bottino et al., 2018). Victimisation due to cyber bullying
has been shown to increase experiences of the internalising the problems like anxiety, depression
and somatic complaints and externalising problems such as somatic problems like aggression,
substance abuse and delinquency (de Oliveira et al., 2017). Studies have reported that the victims
report more concurrent health problems, emotional adjustments problems, school adjustments
problems leading to poorer relationship with the classmates (McPhail-Bell et al., 2016). One of
the main reason identified for cyber bullying is that cyber security is not regarded as a significant
issue by the residents (de Oliveira et al., 2017). As reported by Huertas-Delgado et al., (2016),
the body appearance, the skin colour and facial appearance of the typical indigenous students
makes them susceptible to bullying. Again a study by Broll, Dunlop and Crooks, (2018) have
stated that body image and size of the indigenous students increases the chance of cyber bullying
among the indigenous students. The dimension is also associated to social and the cultural issues,

MASTER OF MENTAL HEALTH NURSING
racism and prejudice, as there has been a hegemonic pattern of valuing white skin. Additionally,
there had been studies that have shown sexual orientation to be related to cyber bullying. In order
to take up strategies regarding the mitigation of the crimes related to digitalisation, one needs to
understand the adolescent’s viewpoints.
Qualitative research question
Does indiscriminate use of social media use among the indigenous university student increases
the incidence cyber bullying.
Qualitative study design
A qualitative study design will be followed to understand the viewpoint of the indigenous
adolescent people. A qualitative approach has been chosen to get an idea about the personal
feelings, opinions and perceptions (Palinkas et al., 2016).
The research is intended to be conducted in a university present in Australia. Interview
will form the qualitative aspect of the research. 25 participants will be chosen for the interview in
a university in Australia, where the percentage of indigenous people are higher. All the
participants needs to be of indigenous background as the research aimed to concentrate on the
use of the social media and its impact on the indigenous adolescents , which would specifically
focus on cyber bullying.
Study population, eligibility criteria, study sample and sampling method
25 indigenous students will be chosen for the conduction of the interview. The primary
reason for choosing this target population is because the indigenous population are vulnerable to