Cyberbullying Statistics

Website Reference : http://www.internetsafety101.org/cyberbullyingstatistics.htm

95% of social media-using teens who have witnessed cruel behavior on social networking sites
say they have seen others ignoring the mean behavior; 55% witness this frequently (PEW Internet
Research Center, FOSI, Cable in the Classroom, 2011)
84% have seen the people defend the person being harassed; 27% report seeing this
frequently.
o
84% have seen the people tell cyberbullies to stop bullying; 20% report seeing this
frequently.
66% of teens who have witnessed online cruelty have also witnessed others joining; 21% say
they have also joined in the harassment (PEW Internet Research Center, FOSI, Cable in the
Classroom, 2011)
90% of social media-using teens who have witnessed online cruelty say they have ignored
mean behavior on social media; 35% have done this frequently (PEW Internet Research Center,
FOSI, Cable in the Classroom, 2011)
o
80% say they have defended the victim; 25% have done so frequently
o
79% have told the cyberbully to stop being mean and cruel; 20% have done so
frequently
Only 7% of U.S. parents are worried about cyberbullying, even though 33% of teenagers have
been victims of cyberbullying (PEW Internet and American Life Survey, 2011)
85% of parent of youth ages 13-17 report their child has a social networking
account. (American Osteopathic Association, 2011)
52% of parents are worried their child will be bullied via social networking sites. (American
Osteopathic Association, 2011)
1 in 6 parents know their child has been bullied via a social networking site. (American
Osteopathic Association, 2011)
One million children were harassed, threatened or subjected to other forms of cyberbullying on
Facebook during the past year. (Consumer Reports, 2011)
Bullying over texting is becoming much more common (University of New Hampshire, 2011)
43% of teens aged 13 to 17 report that they have experienced some sort of cyberbullying in
the past year.[1]
More girls are cyberbullies than boys (59% girls and 41% boys).[2
Cyberbullies spend more time online than other teens overall (38.4 hours compared to 26.8
hours).[3]
Cyberbullies are more likely to have engaged in sexting (31% vs. 19% for teens overall).[4]
34% of those who have had any engagement in cyberbullying have been both a cyberbully
and been cyberbullied.[5]
68% of teens agree that cyberbullying is a serious problem with todays youth.[6]Reasons
cyberbullies said they engaged in cyberbullying:[7]
o

To show off to friends (11%)

To be mean (14%)

Something else (16%)

To embarrass them (21%)

For fun or entertainment (28%)

They deserved it (58%)

To get back at someone (58%)

81% of youth agree that bullying online is easier to get away with than bullying in person.[8]
80% think it is easier to hide online bullying from parents than in-person bullying.[9]

References for article above

[1] Harris Interactive Trends & Tudes, 2007.
[2] Teen Online & Wireless Safety Survey: Cyberbullying, Sexting and Parental Controls. Cox
Communications Teen Online and Wireless Safety Survey in Partnership with the National Center for
Missing and Exploited Children, 2009.
[3] Teen Online & Wireless Safety Survey: Cyberbullying, Sexting and Parental Controls. Cox
Communications Teen Online and Wireless Safety Survey in Partnership with the National Center for
Missing and Exploited Children, 2009.
[4] Teen Online & Wireless Safety Survey: Cyberbullying, Sexting and Parental Controls. Cox
Communications Teen Online and Wireless Safety Survey in Partnership with the National Center for
Missing and Exploited Children, 2009.
[5] Teen Online & Wireless Safety Survey: Cyberbullying, Sexting and Parental Controls. Cox
Communications Teen Online and Wireless Safety Survey in Partnership with the National Center for
Missing and Exploited Children, 2009.
[6] Teen Online & Wireless Safety Survey: Cyberbullying, Sexting and Parental Controls. Cox
Communications Teen Online and Wireless Safety Survey in Partnership with the National Center for
Missing and Exploited Children, 2009.
[7] Teen Online & Wireless Safety Survey: Cyberbullying, Sexting and Parental Controls. Cox
Communications Teen Online and Wireless Safety Survey in Partnership with the National Center for
Missing and Exploited Children, 2009.
[8] Teen Online & Wireless Safety Survey: Cyberbullying, Sexting and Parental Controls. Cox
Communications Teen Online and Wireless Safety Survey in Partnership with the National Center for
Missing and Exploited Children, 2009.
[9] Teen Online & Wireless Safety Survey: Cyberbullying, Sexting and Parental Controls. Cox
Communications Teen Online and Wireless Safety Survey in Partnership with the National Center for
Missing and Exploited Children, 2009.

NEW WEBSITE BLOG

http://radhanath-thialan-essays.blogspot.com/2015/01/cyberbullying.html
Saturday, January 31, 2015

Cyberbullying
BY: Radhanath Thialan

Types of Bullying
Bullying can come in many different forms and ways. The more extreme type
of bullying would be known as harassment. Figure 1 shows some forms of bullying
that often happens in schools. The research was done by Megan Meirer Foundation.
The types of bullying in the pie chart consists of insulting/made-fun of, rumors
spreading, threatened with harm, pushed/spit on/shoved, forced to do things,
excluded from activities on purpose and had properties destroyed on purpose.

Figure 1

From the types of bullying listed above, bullying is divided into two
categories physical and psychological. Psychologists around the world actually

claim that physical bullying is not as bad as psychological bullying. Physical

bullying often involves beating up, spiting on or having physical contact with the
victim. This type of bullying normally leads to scars, injuries, and if serious,
disability or death. The victim in physical bullying often has external injuries and
the bully is easier to be caught by school faculty or police officers. One newspaper
article stated that physical bullying often involves violence, while psychological
bullying is violence in silence.
Psychological bullying is very hard to cure as the victim normally undergoes
depression, low self-esteem and some of them tend to give up their own lives. It is
very hard to investigate upon their deaths because some of them planned or
attempted suicide and are ashamed to even tell their parents about it. Victims
often face hatred by their friends and are looked down on society. He or she may
feel hopeless, helpless and affected psychologically. Many victims actually find
relief by ending their lives as a result. According to SAVE: (Suicide Awareness
Voices of Education) 1 in 65,000 children, age 10 to 14 commit suicide each year.
The World Health Organization made a study and stated that 80% of people who
committed suicide had several depressive symptoms as well (Bullying,
Cyberbullying). Figure 2 below shows the percentage of teenagers who were being
bullied in relation to suicidal thoughts and attempts.
Figure 2: Bullied victims and thoughts of suicidal.

Source: (Bullying, Cyberbullying)

What should school authorities do?

Due to the presence of emotion, some children do not feel comfortable
informing their parents about their problems. The bar chart below shows the
percentage of high school student in the United States seeking help from when they
are bullied via the Internet. It is really good to see in Figure 3 that most students
still seek help from their parents when they are being bullied.

Figure 3: Percentage of who a high school student will turn to for help
when cyberbullied.

Source: (Bullying, Cyberbullying)

School authorities plays a big role here to help prevent cyberbullying, even though
this activity is normally done out of school. Campaigns could be held in school to
provide awareness to school children as 92% of cyberbullying happens in the school
ground on children aged between 12 18 (Landau).

In the twentieth century when many cyberbullying cases were reported,

there are now many strict laws to minimize this anonymous crime. According to the
FBI website, research shows that cyberbullying is very common with
sexting. Therefore, these two are commonly combined together in many legal
policies and laws (Schafer). In Arizona, the terms used in covering cyberbully
lawsuits would be harassment, intimidation and bullying. As most schools in
Arizona takes harassment issues very seriously, just like other states in US; Arizona
has a low rate in this crime. According to Patchin, almost 90% of the school officers
had dealt with cyberbullying cases but about 25% of the school officers and over
40% of the law enforcement officers did not know if their state had a specific law to
cyberbullying (Patchin). From the law enforcement perspective form this point of
view, many are unsure about the law and legal policies towards this crime, which is
depressing to see. Officers should be more updated on their knowledge of the legal

laws and policies for a case that is almost happening everyday like cyberbullying
(Schafer).

Law enforcement plays the biggest role here in reducing the crime rate of
cyberbullying. Since most cases have to do with younger children and teenagers,
school policies are tightened up in many countries to avoid their student in
becoming a victim. School officers have to determine the seriousness of
cyberbullying. On the FBI website, one of the officers stated: The scenarios ranged
from relatively minor (e.g. A teacher confiscates a cell phone from a student in
class and wants to determine if it contains any information that is in violation of
school policy.) to much more serious (e.g. A male student receives an email from
an unknown person threatening to kill him at school tomorrow.)
(Schafer). Because of these huge gaps between the seriousness of cyberbullying,
it is hard to set one law towards this crime. Crime normally starts from minor cases
and slowly, the cyberbully will take risk and create a more serious
situation. According to legal laws, it is not right to punish criminals who violate very
minor crimes and there may not be any charges applied to it (Patchin). With this
said, it actually creates bigger pressure and responsibilities for school officers and
police officers to be more alert and taking this case seriously.

Relating to officers role, the federal laws should state appropriate law
enforcement towards cyberbullying and be more specific about their
circumstances. Cyberbullying and sexting is definitely a new social problem and
various officers have to act fast to prevent a boost in this type of crime rates. Even
if there is no enforcement act, this issue should not be ignored, as it will become
worse as time goes. Disciplinary act is a good way to start reducing this crime rate
and laws should be strongly enforced in schools compared to many other
institutions. Cyberbullying should be taken more seriously because death happens
in this technological bullying method. Unlike any other computer crimes,
cyberbullying is the hardest of all to trace.

Cites referenced but will need look up each since he didnt specify (DUH!!)
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