الخوف من الجريمة الإلكترونية المستهدفة للأفراد وعلاقته بالقلق الاجتماعي لدى عينة من الشباب

Abstract

The study aimed to investigate the fear of cybercrime and its relationship with levels of social anxiety among a sample of Arab youth. A snowball sampling method was used to select a sample of 600 university students sourced from Facebook groups. The sample was drawn from the Egyptian, Qatari, and Jordanian environments. The Study used the Fakhrou et al. (2022) scale for measuring fear of cybercrime and the Olivares et al. (2005) scale for measuring social anxiety, and estimated the validity and reliability indicators for the sample. The results indicated the presence of moderate positive correlations (.227 to .374) between the dimensions of cybercrime and the overall score on the scale with social anxiety as a total score. The study confirmed the bias of the results and justified it as a social desirability bias or a desire to improve self-image specifically for individuals who have experienced some degree of cybercrime targeting individuals, or fear of stigma and labeling when reporting their exposure to cybercrime. The study stressed the need for holding educational seminars to educate the youth and enhance their cyber awareness in order to reduce social anxiety behaviors and increase their knowledge of the danger posed by any action that makes them fall victim to cybercrime.