Response to Cyberbullying

The data collected by the University of New Hampshire's Crimes Against Children Research Center on cyberbullying revealed that youth are telling their parents of cyberbullying incidents half of the time, but rarely are telling their teachers or other authorities (Finkelhor, Mitchell & Wolak 2000, 23):

• Parents were told about these incidents half the time.
• Slightly more than a third of youth told friends.
• 21 per cent of the incidents were reported to Internet Service Providers (ISPs), 6 per cent to teachers, and 1 per cent to a law enforcement agency.
• 24 per cent of the incidents were undisclosed.

Finklehor concludes that there appears to be a tremendous lack of knowledge about what help sources are available to deal with cyberbullying incidents (Finkelhor, Mitchell & Wolak 2000, 30).

These results differ somewhat from the situation with traditional bullying, at least in terms of youth speaking with teachers: Pepler reported that 46 per cent of bullies and 41% of victims had spoken to their teachers about bullying (Pepler et al. 1997, 4). Meanwhile, she reported that 35 per cent of bullies and 54 per cent of victims had spoken to their parents about bullying.

There has not been any research to date into how peers respond to cyberbullying. In the traditional context, Pepler found that peers intervene in only 25 per cent of bullying incidents. With increasing age, there is an increase in the tendency to join bullying, a decrease in the willingness to help a victim, and a decrease in reports of peers assisting victims (Pepler et al. 1997, 5).

When young people have been asked how often their parents talk to them about what they do online, a large majority (70 per cent) say their parents talk to them very little or not at all. By contrast, when parents have been asked how often they talked to their children about what they do online, 78 per cent said they talk a great deal or a fair bit (Media Awareness Network 2001).

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