Cyber Bullying Statistics

Cyber bullying statistics are surprising and sobering. There absolutely are adult victims of cyber bullying. Taking personal Internet safety precautions is vital for everyone. However, the main targets of this sort of cyber abuse are teens. In fact, much of the current statistical research around cyber bullying focuses on teens – likely because studies suggest this form of teen abuse is growing at an abnormally fast rate.

The National Crime Prevention Council suggests that more than half of American teens are exposed to cyber bullying in one form or another. In addition, as technology advances and new forms of electronic communication are introduced kids safety on the Internet becomes further compromised.

CyberBullying.us defines cyber bullying as "willful and repeated harm inflicted through the medium of electronic text." The two fellows who run CyberBullying.us should know. Together, Dr. Justin W. Patchin and Dr. Sameer Hinduja have written many articles that cover the nature and the scary extent of youth cyber bullying. They recently collected data from more than 6,000 youth regarding their personal cyber bullying experiences. These statistics are invaluable as most of the information currently available is thorough when it comes to fighting cyber bullying, but lacking in actual concrete statistics. One of the best ways to fight an issue, such as bullying, is to have correct facts and figures.

The following statistics are adapted from the youth research compiled at CyberBullying.us:

• 33 percent of youth have been victimized by cyber bullying.
• Among this percentage, being ignored and disrespected were the most common forms of cyber bullying.
• The primary cyber bullying location where victimizing occurs is in chat rooms (56 percent).
• Following chat rooms, 49 percent are victimized via instant message and 28 percent via e-mail.
• 34 percent of youth who are bullied feel frustrated, 30 percent angry and 22 percent feel sad.
• Oddly, because many studies show that females often deal with harder situations by becoming sad, this particular study suggests that females feel much angrier than males about being cyber-bullied.
• 41 percent of victims do not tell anyone in their off-screen lives about their abuse, but 38 percent did tell an online friend.
• The situation only improved for 19 percent of victims when they did tell someone about the bullying.
• 17 percent admitted to bullying another individual online.
• Of the offenders interviewed most considered it fun or instructive; such as a way to strengthen their victims.
• More than half of study participants feel that cyber bullying is as bad, or worse, as bullying in real life.

Patchin and Hinduja point out that the most important fact reveled from their research is that five percent of the youth they interviewed claimed to be scared for their own safety. Although, it’s likely that numbers overall are much higher when you consider how many youth in comparison to the 6,000 interviewed are online daily.

Cyber bullying can happen in many different arenas such as e-mails, Web sites, text messaging, cell phones, three-way calling, video, blogs and any other form of communication that occurs electronically. Cyber bullies sometimes, but not always, know their victims in real life.

Cyber bullying statistics show that the affect this abuse has on victims can be devastating. Cyber victimization has been shown to cause poor grades, emotional spirals, poor self-esteem, repeated school absences, depression, and in some cases suicide. These outcomes are similar to real-life bullying outcomes, except for that with cyber bullying there is often no escape. School ends at 3 p.m,. while the Internet is open for business year round.

It’s easier for a bully to get away with abusing another individual online than offline. The obvious reason is anonymity. No one will ever likely see the abuse occur unless the victim tells. And as the research above shows, this rarely happens.

Statistics are useful; they often outline important problems but the next step is to learn how to deal with the impact of cyber bullying. Taking step to prevent cyber bullying is the most important issue when it comes to helping teens.

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