CYBER BULLYING

Is Cyber Bullying against teenagers more detrimental than Face-To-Face Bullying?

Is Cyber Bullying against teenagers more detrimental than face-to-face bullying?

Youth Bullying

Extreme cases of bullying, as well as retaliation by victims of bullying, are frequently reported by the media. Even though, these particular cases are rare and sensationalized, they have drawn attention to the very serious problem of youth bullying surveyed 84 youth between the ages of 13 and 18 years (M = 15, SD = 1.26). Participants self-reported incidents of victimization for schoolyard bullying and for cyber-bullying, then responded to more indirect questions regarding bully perpetration (in an attempt to elicit more truthful answers). The indirect questions involved statements such as, "some kids send text messages that are not nice" followed by request to choose from the following list: not at all like me, a little like me, kind of like me, and a lot like me (L, 2003).

The researchers found that 71 % and 64% of participants reported schoolyard victimization and schoolyard bullying respectively, whereas 49% and 21 % reported cyber-victimization and cyber-bullying respectively. These researchers also reported that 85% of cyber-victims were also classified as schoolyard victims, and 94% of cyber-bullies were also schoolyard bullies. Similar studies support this relationship suggesting that youth who experience cyber-bullying often also experience schoolyard bullying. However, these findings also show that not all cyber-bullies and victims are also schoolyard bullies and victims. As Keith & Martin (2005) have shown, a small percentage of participants in their sample were not involved in schoolyard bullying: 6.4% of cyber victims, 2.4% of cyber-bullies, and 2.4% of cyber bully-victims (J, 2003).

Cyber bullying and school children

In western Mishna (2010) surveyed 177 grade seven students from two schools and reported higher rates of cyber-bully perpetration and victimization. Over 14% of the students surveyed indicated that they had cyber-bullied others, while 25% reported being victimized by cyber-bullies and more than 52% indicated that they knew someone who had been cyber-bullied. Furthermore, 59% of the victims indicated that they had been cyber-bullied between one and three times, 18% indicated that they had been cyber-bullied four to ten times, and 23% reported experiencing cyber-bullying over ten times. Cyber-bullies were also asked to report rates of cyber-bullying, and they, in fact, reported higher rates of repeated cyber-bullying than the victims. Over 43% of the students that reported cyber-bullying others indicated that they had engaged in this type of behaviour one to three times, yet 30% indicated that they had cyber-bullied four to ten times, and 26% revealed that they cyber-bullied over ten times. Like other researchers, Li (2007) indicated that almost half of the cyber-bullies also reported being cyber-victims (J, 2003).

(Media Awareness Network (2006) conducted same gender focus groups with approximately 150 twelveto seventeen-year-olds from two middle schools and two high schools in Georgia, U.S.A. They found that youth were more likely to report cyber-bullying to parents if it was threatening to their nature but they were still hesitant for fear that online privileges would be ...