Lived experiences of individuals with cyberviolence: Understanding the nature of the dark side of social media use.

Background: The advancement in technology has given more people accessibility to internet and social media. Technological advances have led to the exponential rise of cybercrime, with an average of 7000 cases being reported in India every day in 2024. Given the potential harmful consequences, a thorough understanding of this phenomenon and the ways to address them is critically required. Aim: To explore the lived experience of cyberviolence and online victimization. Materials and Methods: The sample comprised of 14 individuals aged 18-30 years, who were the target of cyberviolence, recruited through snowball sampling. Data was collected through a semi-structured interview schedule that was subjected to thematic analysis. Results: The key characteristics of cyberviolence perpetration were found to be the anonymity and power of perpetrator, availability of wider audience, its continuous nature, greater accessibility to the cyber victims, the inability to escape, ease of committing the crime, and difficulty in gathering evidence. These enable the perpetrators to commit different types of cyberviolence, including cyberbullying, online sexual harassment, identity theft, catfishing, and cyber grooming. Conclusion: The study sheds light on the rapidly emerging phenomenon of cyberviolence, operationalizes its definition, and outlines its key characteristics that likely act as facilitative factors for the perpetration of online violence.