The Pew Research Center just published a surprisingly high figure under a headline referring to “cyberbullying.” The authors report that 59% of US 13-17 year-olds had experienced some form of it.
But it’s important to zoom in on the “some form of” part. Pew’s researchers asked their respondents which of six forms of abusive behavior they had experienced online (the 59% was the number for teens who’d experienced at least one).
Three of the forms of behavior—name-calling (the most common, at 42%), rumor-spreading (32%) and physical threats (16%)—don’t require digital media or devices for delivery and aren’t even technically bullying, though they can certainly be used in bullying.
A fourth, a form of stalking (21% said they’d experienced constantly being asked where they are, what they’re doing, etc., by someone other than a parent), has also been going on for eons, but can be even more constant and extreme with mobile phones involved. It can also be a form of dating abuse.
The final two on the list are forms of what popular culture calls “sexting”: receiving unsolicited explicit images (25%) or having explicit images of oneself shared without one’s consent (7%). Both can be forms of bullying, but not necessarily; and both, especially the latter, are often sexual harassment, and—the better to protect themselves—young people need to understand this digital form of sexual harassment as such.
What cyberbullying is and why that matters
So when can any of these actually be cyberbullying? When they’re inflicted on someone repeatedly (which usually means intentionally) using digital tools or media. So the name-calling, rumor-spreading, etc. would need to be repeated and aimed, usually aggressively, at one person. Traditional definitions of bullying usually also refer to “a power imbalance,” whether physical, emotional or social, but that’s pretty well implied by the repeated aggression, right? If one person isn’t being victimized in a one-sided way, we’re usually talking about plain-old conflict, not bullying. Here’s the latest information on that from the Cyberbullying Research Center and the National Research Council. Read more