Parents, authorities and adults who think that cyberbullying is a rare event in schools or who view cyberbullying as a trivial matter must rethink their position – research has found a clear correlation between cyberbullying and increased suicidal ideation or at the very least, poor performance in school.
According to Pew Internet and American Life Survey, 33% of teens have been subjects of cyberbullying. Harris Interactive posed a higher figure at 43% and a survey of 1,500 students between grades four to eight by I-safe.org comes close with a figure of 42% with at least 25% of these children being victims of cyberbullying multiple times. Below is a comparison of cyberbullying statistics across different researches, sample sizes and year conducted:
Research shows that 1 out of 10 to 6 out of 10 teens across the country are victims of cyberbullying. In itself, this may cause most parents not to worry but other studies have revealed some disturbing facts related to cyberbullying.
Cyberbullying Rates Increase with Age: According to the study conducted by the Australian Covert Bullying Prevalence Society on 7418 students last 2008, cyberbullying rates increases with the grade level of children. Only 5% of year 4 students reported cyberbullying as compared to 8% in year 9 students.
Cyberbully Demographics: More disturbing is the fact that according to the Cox Communications Teen Online & Wireless Safety Survey conducted among 655 teens 13 to 18 years old, a larger percentage of cyberbullies are girls compared to boys [59% girls vs. 41% boys]. Moreover, the same study showed that cyberbullies are 160% more probable of engaging in sexting [sex texting] than non-cyberbullies.
Correlation with Suicide Ideation: Perhaps even more important is the correlation found between cyberbullying and suicidal ideation in the study of 2,000 randomly selected American teens by www.cyberbullying.us. In this research, it shows that 1 out of 5 American teens are seriously considering suicide with 1 out of 25 teens going as far as attempting to end his or her life.
The study found that cyberbullying victims and surprisingly, cyberbullying perpetuators are both at an elevated risk for suicide because bullying results in the formation of the precursors of suicidal behavior which are depression, decreased self worth and hopelessness. The study found that cyberbullying victims are 1.9 times more likely to commit suicide than those with no experience of cyberbullying. Even cyberbullies have been found to be 1.5 times more likely to commit suicide than those who do not engage in this act.
Percentage of Victims who Seek Help: I-safe.org reports in its survey that 58% of cyberbullying victims do not tell their parents or any adult about their experience for fear of their computer rights being taken away from them. The National Children’s Home Charity and Tesco Mobile’s survey revealed that only about 25% of cyberbullying victims told their parents about the problem. 28% or more or less 1 out of every 4 cyberbullying victims do not tell anyone about their problems at all.