Bullying has blighted childhood and growing up since time began. Bullying can include mean words, teasing, spiteful pranks, the spreading of false rumors, name-calling, the taking of personal items, exclusion from social groups and events, graffiti scrawled on a locker, pushing and shoving, harassment, threats, and in its worst form, physical violence. Bullying is repetitive, not just a single act of aggression.

Kids who are bullied often withdraw socially, begin to underperform academically, feel anxious, sleep badly, and may eventually become depressed and feel trapped if the bullying goes on long enough.

As seen in the media, extreme bullying scenarios have resulted in a tragic and growing list of young people who take their own lives, at least in part to escape persistent bullying.

Most forms of in-person bullying now also take place online, potentially doubling a child’s exposure to bullying. Online, screen-based or technology-based bullying, which can happen across any medium where social interaction takes place, is called cyberbullying.

What is cyberbullying?

Cyberbullying involves actions like:

• Sharing photos or videos of people without consent to embarrass them, make them feel bad about themselves, or enact revenge for a friendship or relationship that has broken down.
• Name-calling, teasing, belittling, mocking or social exclusion.
• Spreading false rumors.
• Creating fake social media accounts in an individual’s name and posting outrageous statements about a peer to isolate, degrade and prank both people.
• Circulating a person’s private messages sent in confidence to a group for amusement and the power of violating privacy.
• Sharing a person’s videos sent in confidence with a chat group or a class to cause embarrassment and ridicule.
• Sending anonymous critical, harassing or threatening messages to people to damage their self-esteem, make them doubt that their friendship group cares for them or instill a sense of not being safe.
• Texting or direct-messaging explicit, unsolicited images, real, altered or fake.
• Leaking an individual’s personal information such as home address or phone number to peer groups to invade privacy and encourage personal attacks.
• Unsolicited forwarding to an individual hurtful or hateful comments that were made by a social peer to undermine confidence and cause conflict within a social group.
• Posting mocking or spiteful comments on an individual’s social media accounts both to cause upset and to encourage other followers, usually from the same school, to join in, triggering group cyberbullying.

While cyberbullying seems at first glance different from in-person bullying, [WNJ1] experts see similarities.

“It’s the same sort of behavior,” says Bridget K. Biggs, Ph.D., L.P., a psychologist at Mayo Clinic. “Verbal aggression like name-calling, relational aggression like spreading rumors and trying to cut people out of relationships, and threatening or physical aggression — the effects are about the same, broadly speaking: lower mood, reduced self-esteem and anxiety, particularly social anxiety.”

Dr. Biggs underscores one key difference: unlike in-person bullying — unless it is caught on school security cameras — cyberbullying can be proved.

“Cyberbullying leaves a trail of indelible evidence, with the exception of disappearing message capabilities unless one can take a screenshot fast enough. But if a peer sends an unflattering or sexualized video or photo, that’s out in cyberspace forever. So there are positives and negatives to this permanence.”

What is the percentage of cyberbullying?

“The good news is that bullying overall, including cyberbullying, tends to decline after its prevalence peaks in mid-adolescence,” affirms Dr Biggs.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that cyberbullying is experienced by the highest percentage of kids in middle schools (33%) followed by high schools (30%) and primary schools (5%).

Among high school students in the U.S., 1 in 6 has been cyberbullied, compared with 1 in 5 who has been bullied in person. Furthermore, for children who identify as LGBTQ+, the Cyberbullying Research Center reports that 31% experience cyberbullying versus 21% of heterosexual students.

It’s no wonder that when Google surveyed U.S. teachers in 2019, bullying and cyberbullying headlined as their No. 1 concern.

What is the difference between cyberbullying and bullying?

Cyberbullying Facts: There are several ways that cyberbullying differs from in-person bullying:

What are the effects of cyberbullying?

If you were ever bullied at school, you’ll remember how quickly you felt shut out of life and how going into school each day was fraught with fear or a feeling of torture. Targets of cyberbullying are affected in much the same way as those bullied in person and can develop some or all of the following symptoms:

• Difficulties sleeping.
• Not wanting to go to school.
• Declining academic performance.
• Acting distracted at home.
• Anxiety.
• Low mood
• Reduced self-esteem.
• Feelings of not fitting in or belonging.

As the extent or longevity of bullying increase, it’s possible for more extreme reactions to occur, including:

• Self-harming behaviors such as cutting or burning.
• Depression.
• Thoughts of dropping out of school.
• Suicidal thoughts.
• Suicide attempts.

“With traditional face-to-face bullying,” says Dr. Biggs, “when you get home, you at least get a break from it. But if that social connection is also online, then you are still connected via cyberspace when you get home. Cyberspace therefore becomes just one more place to experience bullying.”

In a rare minority of cases, there have been tragic, high-profile stories of kids in the U.S. driven to suicide by cyberbullying. However, research on this subject by Pacer’s National Bullying Prevention Center is careful to underscore that suicide is always complex, with multifaceted drivers.

“There’s an increased risk for suicidality if a child is being bullied, yes,” Dr Biggs adds. “But note that of all the kids experiencing bullying, it’s a really small number who commit suicide. That’s important for parents to know.”

Why do people cyberbully?

As with in-person bullying, bullies court popularity and power and see bullying as a means to exert influence, control friendships, and dominate classrooms and playgrounds. In making others feel small, they feel bigger. There are often familial factors behind bullying and cyberbullying, and those can include witnessing verbal or physical aggression at home, which can lead to similar behavior socially or at school. With cyberbullying, if the bully has a high number of followers on social media, the validation of likes and shares for bullying behaviors can be intoxicating and signal a formula for popularity.

How to stop a child who is cyberbullying

• Explain what cyberbullying is, how it traumatizes others and its consequences.
• Set out what behaviors are unacceptable and explain that you will monitor behavior.
• Praise improved behaviors and set consequences, such as limiting gaming time, if your child cyberbullies again.
• Propose a meeting with administrators at your child’s school if behavior deteriorates.

Is cyberbullying illegal?

Strictly speaking, no. But if cyberbullying touches on laws around stalking, criminal online harassment or sexting that involves third-party possession or wider distribution of nude photos of minors, then authorities can be engaged. And if cyberbullying — as with in-person bullying — leads to a physical attack on the victim, then assault charges may become valid. Relative to state and federal law, schools can intervene when bullying of a student is taking place by another student or group of students, though according to Pew Research Center, only 34% of parents whose child is being cyberbullied report it to the child’s school.

How can parents prevent cyberbullying?

One can’t prevent cyberbullying. After all, it’s impossible to live screen-free in our world today. But Dr. Biggs does advocate parents helping their child divert focus toward building a healthy social circle.

“The effects of being bullied are mitigated when people have strong social support,” she explains. “Even one good-quality friendship can make a difference. If a child has this, then the child may feel able to say ‘That’s a chat group I don’t want to be part of.’ Parents can support their kids by encouraging the fostering of friendships and activities that are positive. You can even ask: ”Who do you want to surround yourself with?’ That’s a very positive coping strategy, surrounding yourself with good people.”

As well as encouraging positive friendships, parents can also help clarify context.

“With cyberbullying,” Dr Biggs says, “if children show you a message that upsets them, which the cyberbully is calling a joke, you might say something like, ‘Well I didn’t find that very funny — I suggest you shrug it off and don’t engage, because this person just wants to pull you in.’ “

Dr. Biggs, a mother of two herself, sees conversations about cyberbullying as just another part of teaching children about online safety.

“Start having conversations about safe behaviors online as soon as your kid begins using technology. That shouldn’t be one conversation; it should be ongoing. You need to talk about phishing, scamming, people who may say they’re somebody but they’re actually somebody else and what information is safe to provide. And you should warn that there are people who do mean things online who might also do mean things in person. If kids already have that awareness, then when it happens, they can think, ‘I remember, a safe adult told me about that and predicted that this is something that could happen.’ “

Overall, though, Dr Biggs advises a delicate balance of supervision and distance.

“Not helicopter parenting and not letting them fly the helicopter,” she says. “Kids are more likely to use the internet safely and positively when their parents pay attention to what they are doing, provide guidance and set limits around use — but also allow some choice, input and autonomous decision-making, all while keeping the lines of communication open between themselves and their kids. It seems that providing some education about the benefits and dangers of the internet — including the possibility of aggression occurring in digital platforms — is beneficial. As with other responsibilities, it makes sense to ease restrictions and allow greater autonomy and choice as kids get older and as they demonstrate their ability to use the resource responsibly.”

How kids can limit their exposure to cyberbullying

• Never respond unless a parent encourages you to assert a clear boundary and take a screenshot of your request — for example, “Please stop saying these things to me,” “I don’t want you to treat me this way” — so it can be used as evidence of online harassment, if needed.
• Take a screenshot of all hostilities to establish a record of evidence.
• Show a parent the messages or comments and talk it over.
• Block and report cyberbullies on social media if doing so won’t inflame an already difficult situation.
• If your parents agree, arrange a discrete meeting with a teacher.
• Use privacy settings to protect personal posts on social media from being accessed by strangers.
• Wait for at least 60 minutes before acting on an impulse to share sensitive photos, videos or information with a peer.
• Have designated digital-free time each day.

The future of cyberbullying

Because it is next to impossible to live in a device-free world while growing up nowadays, parents may fear that nothing can stop their child being cyberbullied. However, Dr. Biggs cites one effective peer-to-peer method that does work: upstanding.

“Upstanding is when witnesses speak up and communicate that aggression is not acceptable and that treating others with respect is socially desirable or ‘cool,’ ” Dr Biggs says. “That does reduce bullying.”

There are also small poignant ways parents can reduce bullying of any type though, as Dr Biggs concludes:

“I heard of a parent responding to news that her child had been bullying another child on the bus. She told her son that she had heard that bullying had been happening — without indicating that she knew who was doing it — and asked him to look out for the child, as she knew that child to be a kind and responsible person. The bullying stopped.”