Original article
Electronic Bullying Among Middle School Students

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2007.08.017Get rights and content

Abstract

Purpose

Electronic communications technologies are affording children and adolescents new means of bullying one another. Referred to as electronic bullying, cyberbullying, or online social cruelty, this phenomenon includes bullying through e-mail, instant messaging, in a chat room, on a website, or through digital messages or images sent to a cell phone. The present study examined the prevalence of electronic bullying among middle school students.

Methods

A total of 3,767 middle school students in grades 6, 7, and 8 who attend six elementary and middle schools in the southeastern and northwestern United States completed a questionnaire, consisting of the Olweus Bully/Victim Questionnaire and 23 questions developed for this study that examined participants’ experiences with electronic bullying, as both victims and perpetrators.

Results

Of the students, 11% that they had been electronically bullied at least once in the last couple of months (victims only); 7% indicated that they were bully/victims; and 4% had electronically bullied someone else at least once in the previous couple of months (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.

Conclusions

Electronic bullying represents a problem of significant magnitude. As children’s use of electronic communications technologies is unlikely to wane in coming years, continued attention to electronic bullying is critical. Implications of these findings for youth, parents, and educators are discussed.

Section snippets

Participants

Participants included 1,915 girls and 1,852 boys in grades 6, 7, and 8 who attended any of six elementary and middle schools in the southeastern and northwestern United States. The schools were selected because they were planning to begin a bullying prevention program after the collection of baseline data about bullying at their schools. Table 1 provides a description of the school locales, ethnicity of students, and socioeconomic status (SES) of students (as measured by the percentage of

Prevalence of electronic bullying

We divided students into four groups: those who had been electronically bullied at least once in the last 2 months (victims only), those who had electronically bullied others (bullies only), those who had both been electronically bullied and also had electronically bullied others (bully/victims), and those who had no experience with electronic bullying as either victims or perpetrators. (Much of the research on school bullying has used a more conservative criterion [“2–3 times a month” or more

Discussion

The data suggest that, among middle school students, electronic bullying is a problem. Of the students, 11% had been electronically bullied at least once in the last couple of months; 7% were bully/victims; and 4% had electronically bullied someone else at least once in the previous 2 months. If anything, the statistics underestimate the true frequency of electronic bullying. Our survey assessed children’s experiences with electronic bullying over the previous 2 months. It is quite possible

Acknowledgment

The authors thank Melinda Keith for helpful comments on an earlier version of this manuscript.

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