“I felt angry, but I couldn’t do anything about it”: a qualitative study of cyberbullying among Taiwanese high school students

Background Cyberbullying is a growing public health concern threatening the well-being of adolescents in both developed and developing countries. In Taiwan, qualitative research exploring the experiences and perceptions of cyberbullying among Taiwanese young people is lacking. Methods We conducted in-depth interviews with a convenience sample of high school students (aged 16 to 18) from five schools in Taipei, Taiwan, without prior knowledge of their cyberbullying experiences. In total, 48 participants were interviewed. Results We found that the experience of cyberbullying is common, frequently occurs anonymously and publicly on unofficial school Facebook pages created by students themselves, and manifests in multiple ways, such as name-calling, uploading photos, and/or excluding victims from online groups of friends. Exclusion, which may be a type of cyberbullying unique to the Asian context, causes a sense of isolation, helplessness, or hopelessness, even producing mental health effects in the victims because people place the utmost importance on interpersonal harmony due to the Confucian values in collectivistic Asian societies. In addition, our study revealed reasons for cyberbullying that also potentially reflect the collectivistic values of Asian societies. These reasons included fun, discrimination, jealousy, revenge, and punishment of peers who broke school or social rules/norms, for example, by cheating others or being promiscuous. Conclusions Our findings reveal the pressing need for the Taiwanese school system to develop cyberbullying prevention programmes considering the nature and sociocultural characteristics of cyberbullying.

Asia has increased 1670% since 2000 [10]. In particular, the overall penetration of internet usage has exceeded 80% of the population in certain countries, such as Hong Kong (87.0%), Japan (93.3%), South Korea (92.6%), and Taiwan (87.9%) [11]. In this context, the pervasiveness of ICT usage is alarming considering the urgent and critical issue of cyberbullying in Asian countries [12]. Although this issue has received little attention, the phenomenon has been found to be pervasive among adolescents in Asia. Studies from Taiwan, China, South Korea, and Japan have shown prevalence rates ranging from 6.3 to 34.8% for cyberbullying perpetration and from 14.6 to 56.9% for cyberbullying victimization [13][14][15][16]. These studies suggest that factors such as gender [13][14][15], electronic media (instant messaging, chat rooms, websites and bulletin board systems, e-mail, cell phones, SNSs, etc.) [13,14], academic achievement [14], internet usage time [14,15], and prior traditional bullying experiences [14,15] are associated with cyberbullying.
Many studies on cyberbullying have been conducted in Western countries [5,7,[17][18][19][20][21] using both qualitative and quantitative approaches, whereas research on cyberbullying in Asian regions [13][14][15]22], whether qualitative or quantitative, remains scarce. Furthermore, past studies on cyberbullying in Asia have predominately been conducted using a quantitative approach to analyse the prevalence and related factors regarding cyberbullying, yet adolescents' experiences and perceptions in the Asian context have not received much attention.
Cyberbullying is context-dependent, namely, influenced by the sociocultural environment [13]. Some studies have suggested that sociocultural factors should be considered to understand differences in the cyberbullying phenomenon between Asian and Western countries. For example, Shapka and Law (2013) found that ethnic differences between Canadian adolescents of East Asian and European descent were related to cyberbullying engagement [23]. Li (2008) found different patterns regarding cyberbullying experiences between Canadian and Chinese students, also suggesting that access to various ICTs may increase the risk of being involved in cyberbullying [24]. Furthermore, a short-term longitudinal study indicated cultural differences in cyberbullying between U.S. students and Japanese students [25].
A qualitative approach offers a useful means to explore the cyberbullying experiences of adolescents in the Asian social context in depth. This study employed a qualitative approach to explore the experiences and perceptions of cyberbullying among high school students in Taiwan.

Study design, participants, and setting
This is a qualitative study conducted between June and November 2016 using convenience sampling of high school students aged 16-18 from five high schools in Taipei, Taiwan. Participants in this study were recruited without prior knowledge of their cyberbullying experiences either as victims or perpetrators owing to the difficulties of identifying the victims and perpetrators of cyberbullying as indicated in previous studies [5,21]. Teachers announced the interview opportunity in class to help recruit student volunteers. Given the sensitive nature of the topic of cyberbullying, the teachers did not mention the word "bullying" in the announcement. They mentioned only that the researchers wanted to interview students about their internet usage experiences. Subsequently, potential student volunteers contacted the teachers privately to obtain more details about the interview (namely, that the interview would address their opinions, perceptions and experiences regarding cyberbullying) to decide whether to participate. If the students and their legal guardians both agreed, then the researchers arranged an interview time. This study relied on voluntary participation. All participants and their guardians received information about the study's purpose, its strict confidentiality, the voluntary nature of their participation, and their right to withdraw from the interview at any time. The participants and their guardians provided written informed consent prior to the interviews. Psychotherapy or mental health counselling was provided by the researcher during the study when requested by a participant. In addition, participants were referred to a hospital psychiatrist or clinical psychologist if they were found to be experiencing psychological distress or were identified as having severe suicidal ideation. We provided stationery and snacks to the students as tokens of appreciation for their time.

Data collection and analysis
Data were collected through in-depth interviews guided by a semi-structured questionnaire. All interviews were audio-recorded and conducted in Mandarin by the same researcher (first author), and each interview lasted 30 to 100 min. The interviews were conducted in a designated room at each school that was occupied only by the researcher and participant to ensure the participants' privacy and confidentiality. Prior to the interviews, the participants answered a short questionnaire including questions regarding sociodemographic characteristics (age, gender, etc.) and internet and ICT-related factors (internet usage time, tools to access the internet, etc.). The interviews explored the students' experiences and perceptions of cyberbullying. Table 1 displays the topics and items included in the in-depth interviews.
The interviews were transcribed verbatim and imported into QSR International's Nvivo10 software. To perform the analyses, we used investigator triangulation and thematic analysis, an approach that involves familiarization with the data through an iterative process of reading the transcripts, generating codes, and arranging them into larger categorical groups (subcategories, categories, and themes) until a saturated thematic map of the data is obtained [26]. We revised and refined the themes until we achieved a consensus.

Results
In total, 48 participants were interviewed [26 male students (54.2%) and 22 female students (45.8%)]. Most of the participants (77.1%) lived with both their parents, used a smartphone as a tool to access the internet (75.0%), and used the internet for at least 2 hours per day (66.7%) ( Table 2).
Of the 48 participants, 12 students (25.0%) reported a personal history of being a victim of cyberbullying, and the majority of the victims [10 of 12 (83.3%)] also reported being witnesses. The remainder of the students (75.0%) reported witnessing cyberbullying by friends, classmates, or schoolmates; however, none of them reported ever being a perpetrator. We identified six main themes, which are presented below along with supporting quotes. In some instances, the quotes were slightly edited for fluency.

Theme 1: the sites of cyberbullying
Most participants [38 of 48 (79.2%)] reported that SNSs were the venues in which they were most likely to experience or witness cyberbullying, including unofficial school Facebook pages, personal Facebook pages, Instagram and Meteor (an SNS that is popular among Taiwanese high school students). In particular, they explained that cyberbullying often emerged on unofficial school Facebook pages. These pages are unrestricted and are created by students themselves to anonymously express their feelings or complaints concerning someone or something related to their school. One of the victims stated: "I saw that they verbally abused me on our unofficial school Facebook page, and many idiots (schoolmates) didn't know the truth, and then, they clicked the 'Like' button on that post. I felt angry that they agreed with the perpetrators. I couldn't do anything about it [angry face]." [16, M] Some participants [10 of 48 (20.8%)] also reported instances of cyberbullying such as uploading photos without approval through instant messaging applications such as LINE (a popular app in Taiwan for instant communication). One participant said:"She felt angry that her classmates downloaded her Facebook photos without permission and re-uploaded the photos without her approval to the LINE class group." [17, F] A few of the participants [4 of 48 (8.3%)], particularly boys, indicated that online gaming, specifically multiplayer or violent games, was another online context where they had witnessed or experienced cyberbullying. One victim said:"They [the online game players] verbally abused me because my performance was poor. Then, they would command you to change the online game character. If you did not follow their requests, they would attack you repeatedly. I felt very uncomfortable when I played the game." [17, M] Theme 2: the features of cyberbullying In the interviews, the participants reported some features of cyberbullying, including anonymity, publicity, and permanency, which result in negative feelings such as anger or sadness.

Anonymity
The majority of participants [32 of 48 (66.7%)] stated that cyberbullying was characterized by anonymity, indicating that perpetrators could attack victims but remain anonymous. According to the victims, nearly half of the victims [5 of 12 (41.7%)] stated that in their experience, they were cyberbullied anonymously. They mentioned that they felt powerless when being bullied online. This feeling was mostly related to the fact that the perpetrators were anonymous, precluding the victims from taking action to resolve the issue (for example, by removing inappropriate content from SNSs), as expressed in the following statements: However, their names were not shown on that page. They submitted their posts to the third-party platform (CrushNinja), and then the posts were submitted by the third-party platform without revealing their identities." [18, M] This study found that an anonymous social media site called Meteor is highly popular among Taiwanese high school students. On this site, perpetrators can attack "They posted my photo as the cover photo of our LINE class group, but I did not care because I thought they were just kidding." [17, M] "He [an unfamiliar classmate] uploaded my photo, and I didn't like it. I'm not sure whether this behaviour could be called cyberbullying." [18, M] In addition, the participants mentioned that whether a particular behaviour would be considered cyberbullying was based on the nature of the relationship of the involved students. They argued that between good friends, actions are interpreted as jokes, but these actions would be perceived as cyberbullying attacks if they came from unfamiliar people. For example, the participants explained:"My sleeping photos have often been posted as the cover photos of our LINE class group since the 10 th grade. However, I do not care. I know that they are kidding rather than trying to hurt me. Coping with cyberbullying seemed difficult; half of the victims [6 of 12 (50.0%)] reported that they ignored the bullying. However, some of the victims reported coping strategies, including talking with friends, expecting teachers to intervene, confrontation, and leaving the group.

Ignoring cyberbullying/taking no action
Half of the victims [6 of 12 (50.0%)] reported that they ignored cyberbullying or took no action when they experienced cyberbullying.
"They verbally abused me on our unofficial school Facebook page. I thought that they had nothing better to do and I just ignored it [cyberbullying]." [18, F] "I felt angry, but I couldn't do anything about it [cyberbullying] since he/she remained anonymous. I could not figure out who attacked me." [17, F] Talking with friends Three of the 12 victims (25.0%) talked with friends to express their feelings. One victim said: "I felt very angry, but I couldn't do anything about it. The one thing that I could do was talk to my friends.
My friends comforted me and told me not to take it so seriously." [18, F]

Expecting teachers to intervene
In a few instances [2 of 12 (16.7%)], the victims explained that responding to cyberbullying was difficult due to the anonymity of the perpetrators and expressed the hope that teachers could identify the perpetrators. However, they felt that teachers could not address cyberbullying since the perpetrators remained anonymous. One participant described the following: "I think that the teachers should deal with cyberbullying. However, the teachers may not be able to find out who the perpetrator is due to anonymity." [18, F] Confrontation In a few cases [2 of 12 (16.7%)] where the victim knew the identity of the perpetrator, some victims felt angry or hurt and confronted the perpetrator(s) to demand the removal of demeaning content from SNSs. A victim stated: "He [the classmate] uploaded my photo as his Facebook profile picture, but I demanded that he remove my photo." [18, M] Leaving the group Only one of the 12 victims (8.3%) mentioned she left a chat group in response to cyberbullying. She said: "They [the schoolmates] were gossiping about me on the chat group on Facebook Messenger, but I didn't reply to the message and quit the chat group." [17, F]

Discussion
To our knowledge, this is the first qualitative study to explore cyberbullying among Taiwanese high school students. Most previous studies have used a quantitative approach [13,22,27]. However, due to the complexity and sensitivity of cyberbullying, quantitative studies may not fully capture the breadth and depth of the problem.
From the results, we found some similarities and differences between Asian and Western contexts. Regarding the sites of cyberbullying, similar to Western societies [28,29], cyberbullying predominantly occurs through SNSs. However, our study highlighted that students consistently mentioned cyberbullying experienced or witnessed on their unofficial school Facebook pages, which has rarely been reported in other studies. In Taiwan, many high school students have created unofficial school Facebook pages to express their feelings or complaints concerning someone or something at school. The anonymity and publicity [6,30] of such sites were utilized to provide a cover for insults, humiliation, personal attacks, or assaults, allowing many cyber bystanders to attack victims jointly. The anonymity and publicity of cyberbullying, together with its permanency, create serious negative consequences that may cause long-term psychological effects for cyber victims.
With respect to the types of cyberbullying, namecalling (gossiping), posting photos, and an overlap with traditional bullying have also been reported in the Western context [18,[31][32][33][34]. In this study, we found that students used SNSs (Instagram) to gossip or call other people names, implying that they may learn about name-calling (gossiping) via Instagram as victims or bystanders. We recommend that future studies should address this issue to clarify whether students are actively participating in cyberbullying.
In addition, we found that group exclusion was very common, as reported in other Asian societies [14,35,36]. This study found that students used group exclusion to isolate a victim, for example, by creating a LINE group including everyone except for the victim(s). Previous studies from China and Hong Kong have documented group Some respondents (either victims or participants) responded more than once and therefore appear twice a Percentage of the victims exclusion, including the use of online text to socially isolate victims [35] or kicking someone out of a chat room [14]. Such exclusion may cause feelings of isolation, helplessness, or hopelessness, producing mental health effects in victims of cyberbullying because people place the utmost importance on interpersonal harmony and a sense of belonging due to the Confucian values in collectivistic Asian societies [13,37,38]. Regarding the motivations for cyberbullying, fun [39], discrimination [40,41], jealousy [42], and revenge [39,[41][42][43] were consistent with previous studies in Western societies. In addition, we found that punishment may be a significant motivation to cyberbully peers who break school rules, such as cheating, or social norms, such as traditional heterosexual roles [44] in Asian societies. In particular, group conformity is an important social rule in Asian society [38]; in this study, if students did something wrong or were different from others, as in the case of sexual minorities, they were easily targeted by other students.
In this study, we found that cyberbullying is ambiguous or highly context-dependent in Asian countries. Previous Western studies [20,45] have mentioned "intention" as a critical criterion to distinguish cyberbullying from cyber jokes. However, our study showed that the distinction between cyberbullying and conventional jokes and pranks between friends was not clear to many students. Judgments regarding whether a particular act or behaviour could be considered cyberbullying were based on the closeness to or the nature of the relationship with the perpetrator. Therefore, most behaviours, however offensive, would be regarded as a joke or "just for fun" if they were performed by someone close because participants felt that such behaviours were not performed with the intent to hurt someone. This observation may explain why many high school students mentioned that cyberbullying was carried out for entertainment or fun. We suggest that in addition to the intention of the perpetrator, his or her relationship with peers can be used to define cyberbullying among adolescents in the Asian context. Additionally, power imbalance is an essential criterion for defining cyberbullying [45,46]. Perpetrators may expose victims publicly, issuing psychological threats and causing the victims to feel powerless in the face of the potential cyber audience (based on the number of comments, likes, and shares) [47].
Regarding coping strategies, consistent with one study in China, most victims reported that they ignored the attacks [14]. This behaviour may indicate that passive coping strategies are predominantly adopted in Asian societies because these societies value interpersonal harmony and tolerance due to the social rules in relationships, again implying the core Confucian values in Asian contexts.
In contrast, active coping strategies, such as attempting to resolve problems or blocking a bully, have been commonly reported in Western countries [32,48].
Although this study provided some insight into Taiwanese students' experiences and perceptions of cyberbullying, we need to acknowledge some limitations. First, despite our efforts to ensure privacy during the interview, place participants at ease, and maintain strict confidentiality, students were reluctant to report being victims or perpetrators of cyberbullying (in the interviews, we found that a few participants initially spoke in the third person. However, they later spoke in the first person to disclose their stories). Due to the sensitive nature of the topic and the social desirability effect, we may have failed to capture some important aspects of cyberbullying in this study, especially the cyber perpetrators' perspective. Second, voluntary participation may have introduced a self-selection bias.

Conclusions
The experience of cyberbullying appears to be common among high school students and occurs in multiple forms (name-calling, posting photos, exclusion from online groups, etc.) and on multiple platforms (Facebook and instant messaging applications). Our findings underscore the pressing need for the Taiwanese school system to take action to prevent and stop cyberbullying, including developing students' and teachers' skills and appropriate response strategies, considering the nature of cyberbullying and sociocultural characteristics in Taiwan.

Availability of data and materials
This study is based on qualitative data, including observation field notes and interview transcripts. The participants did not consent to have their full transcripts shared publicly.
Ethics approval and consent to participate This study was approved by the Kyoto University Graduate School and Faculty of Medicine Ethics Committee (R0537) and the Research Ethics Committee at National Taiwan University Hospital (201601074RIND). All participants and their guardians received information about the study purpose, its strict confidentiality and the voluntary nature of their participation as well as their right to withdraw from the interview at any