NCJ Number
220793
Journal
Journal of Adolescent Health Volume: 41 Issue: 6 Dated: December 2007 Pages: S22-S30
Date Published
December 2007
Length
9 pages
Annotation
The study examined the prevalence of electronic bullying among middle school students.
Abstract
Findings indicate that electronic bullying represents a problem of significant magnitude among middle school students. Electronic communications technologies are affording children and adolescents new means of bullying one another. Referred to as electronic bullying, cyber-bullying, or online social cruelty, this phenomenon includes bullying through e-mail, instant messaging, in chat room, on a Web site, or through digital messages or images sent to a cell phone. What is known about traditional bullying can not necessarily be applied to the electronic world; unlike traditional bullying in which boys are more likely to be the perpetrators, girls electronically bully and are electronically bullied more than boys. Unlike traditional bullying in which the perpetrator usually is known to his or her victims, the findings suggests that half of children who are bullied electronically do not know the identity of the perpetrators. Of the students, 11 percent said that they had been electronically bullied at least once in the last couple of months (victims only); 7 percent indicated that they were bully/victims; and 4 percent had electronically bullied someone else at least once in the previous couple of month (bullies only). The most common methods for electronic bullying (as reported by both victims and perpetrators) involved the use of instant messaging, chat rooms, and e-mail. Importantly, close to half of the electronic bully victims reported not knowing the perpetrator’s identity. The sample consisted of 3,767 middle school students in sixth, seventh, and eighth grades who attend 6 elementary and middle schools in the Southeastern and Northwestern United States. The students completed the Olweus Bully/Victim Questionnaire with 23 additional questions developed for the study that examined participants’ experiences with electronic bullying, as both victims and perpetrators. Tables, figures, references