Blurring the Lines: Factors Influencing Victim–perpetrator Overlap in Korean Adolescent Cyberbullying Behaviors

Cyberbullying has proliferated globally with rapid digitalization and has emerged as a serious social problem in South Korea. Existing studies have approached cyberbullying through a binary structure of perpetrators and victims, but this approach inadequately explains the complex interactions in digital spaces. Therefore, this study focuses on the role overlap phenomenon in cyberbullying to analyze these multifaceted characteristics. This study analyzed survey data from 9,479 Korean adolescents collected in 2024, applying routine activity theory alongside descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, and multinomial logistic regression. The results showed that 16.4% of participants were classified as the victim–perpetrator type, experiencing both victimization and perpetration in cyberbullying incidents. Among all predictors, having friends involved in cyberbullying emerged as the strongest factor. Parental and school guardianship exhibited distinct predictive patterns for the victim–perpetrator type relative to other involvement categories (non-involved, victim-only, and perpetrator-only). These findings provide empirical support for the complex characteristics of cyberbullying and demonstrate the necessity of multilayered intervention strategies beyond simple binary approaches. Based on these findings, this study recommends family-centered prevention programs with complementary school-based interventions, given that parental guardianship serves as the primary buffer against cyberbullying role overlap.