This study aimed to analyze the effects of adolescents’ experiences of domestic violence on online and offline delinquency and to examine whether social support has a moderating effect on the relationship between them. Experiences of violence within...
This study aimed to analyze the effects of adolescents’ experiences of domestic violence on online and offline delinquency and to examine whether social support has a moderating effect on the relationship between them. Experiences of violence within the home may have negative effects on adolescents’ emotional and behavioral development, and in recent years, delinquent behaviors in online spaces, in addition to offline delinquency, have emerged as important social issues. Despite the possibility that patterns and influencing factors of delinquency may vary according to adolescents’ developmental stages, research that analyzes these differences by school level remains limited. Accordingly, this study distinguished between online and offline delinquency and examined the protective role of social support by focusing on differences across school levels.
For this purpose, data from the 2021 Adolescent Mental Health Survey were utilized, and the analytical sample consisted of 4,624 adolescents who responded to the survey. The main variables included experiences of domestic violence, online and offline delinquency, and social support, and analyses were conducted by comparing results across school levels. In addition, several general characteristics, such as gender and family environment, were considered to enhance the accuracy of the analysis. Data analysis involved descriptive statistics and correlation analysis, followed by regression analysis and moderation analysis to test the research hypotheses.
The results indicated that experiences of domestic violence significantly increased both online and offline delinquency among adolescents. In other words, adolescents who had directly experienced violence at home were more likely to engage in delinquent behaviors not only offline but also in online environments. These effects differed by school level, suggesting that the patterns through which domestic violence experiences lead to delinquency vary across developmental stages. Furthermore, social support showed a significant moderating effect on the relationship between experiences of domestic violence and delinquency, such that higher levels of social support were associated with a weaker association between domestic violence experiences and delinquent behaviors.
These findings suggest that interventions aimed at preventing and addressing delinquency among adolescents who have experienced domestic violence should move beyond approaches focused solely on individual problem behaviors and instead incorporate differentiated strategies that consider developmental stage and school level. This study is meaningful in that it extends existing research by examining the relationship between domestic violence experiences and adolescent delinquency across developmental stages and by verifying the moderating effect of social support.