Mapping Digital Adolescence: Assessing Online Experiences and Cyberbullying with the Online Behavior Questionnaire
Abstract
Adolescents’ digital lives encompass interconnected patterns of online activity, social interactions, emotional experiences, exposure to harmful content, and parental mediation. Yet, existing measures typically assess these domains separately. Consequently, understanding how these dimensions interact has remained challenging. To address this gap, we developed and validated the Online Behavior Questionnaire (OBQ), an ecological measure designed to assess the interconnected dimensions of adolescents’ digital lives within a single theoretically grounded framework. The OBQ assesses adolescents’ digital experiences that are directly relevant to bullying prevention: general online activities, exposure to harmful content and cyberbullying, adolescent-parent online communication and mediation, and bystanders’ responses to ecologically valid cyberbullying scenarios. Two adolescent samples (total N = 617) were used to establish the OBQ’s structure and psychometric properties: a panel sample of 13-17-year-olds (Study 1; N = 308) and a twin-based sample of 17-18-year-olds (Study 2; N = 309). Confirmatory factor analyses in both samples supported a replicated six-factor model with adequate global fit indices and predominantly moderate-to-strong item loadings. Internal consistency was acceptable for most factors (α = 0.67–0.89), with weaker reliability for offensive bystander emotions when indexed by McDonald’s ω. Adolescent-parent online communication and mediation showed positive associations with sympathetic emotions and defending intentions, and small negative or negligible associations with general online activity and exposure to harmful content. The OBQ provides a theoretically grounded ecological measure for research and preliminary assessment of adolescents’ digital experiences. Further validation across diverse populations and contexts would strengthen its application to screening, program evaluation, and intervention design.