Prevalence and Impact of Cyber Bullying among Adolescents

Background and Purpose: The Internet is becoming the preferred method of communication for youth. It is also becoming a site for bullying, exacerbated by perceptions of anonymity, greater technological knowledge among youth, and the ability of bullying messages and images to be sent at any time and quickly transmitted to a large audience. The devastating impact of cyber bullying, including depression, substance use and delinquency (Mitchell, Ybarra & Finklehor, 2007) has revealed cyber bullying as a dominant public health problem. While a developing research base exists, estimating the prevalence of cyber bullying between 9-25% (Kowalski & Limber, 2007; Li, 2007; Williams & Guerra, 2007), this is the first study to specifically examine cyber bullying with a representative sample. The purpose was to identify the extent and impact of cyber bullying to generate knowledge and inform interventions.

Methods: A geographically stratified random sample of grade six, seven, ten and eleven students (n=2186) from a large urban centre completed a survey exploring demographics, technology use, and frequency and impact of cyber bullying. The prevalence of bullying behaviour was assessed with descriptive statistics, and chi-square tests examined bullying behaviour by gender and grade.

Results: Fifty-five percent of participants were female, one-third were born outside the country, and almost half had parents whose primary language was not English. Sixty-seven percent of participants spent 2 or more hours on the computer daily, and almost half had a computer in their bedroom. Twenty-one percent of participants indicated they had been bullied online in the last three months, and 35% indicated they had bullied others online. Most bullying was perpetrated by and to friends and participants generally did not tell anyone about the bullying. Participants were most likely to be bullied through instant messaging, social networking sites, and Internet games. While half of participants indicated that being bullied online did not bother them, many felt angry, sad, and depressed. Participants bullied others online because it made them feel funny, popular and powerful, although one-fifth indicated feeling guilty afterwards. Younger students were more likely to be threatened online (χ2=4.4, df=1, p<.05), or to have someone pretend to be them (χ2=4.0, df=1, p<.05), whereas older students were more likely to have private photos of them distributed online (χ2=17.5, df=1, p<.0005) or be asked to do something sexual online (χ2=4.0, df=1, p<.05). Girls were more likely to have rumours spread about them (χ2=16.7, df=1, p<.0005), receive sexual photos (χ2=7.6, df=1, p<.01), and be asked to do something sexual online (χ2=7.4, df=1, p<.01). Boys were more likely to have threatened someone online (χ2=10.6, df=1, p<.01).

Conclusions and Implications: Cyber bullying is a significant problem that must be understood within the context of the new cyber world. While technology creates social and academic opportunities, it is concurrently utilized as a site for bullying. Despite perceptions of anonymity, cyber bullying generally is not anonymous and occurs among friends and classmates. Greater attention is required to understand and reduce cyber bullying within an ecological systems approach, including the children's peers, schools and parents.