A Cyber-beat-up? My thoughts on Cyber-bullying

Is the phenomenon known as cyber-bullying really a significant threat to our youth or just the natural evolution of adolescent behaviour?

Not much surprises me anymore. I'm not going to claim to have seen everything, but I've seen a lot in a decade working with kids. Even though sometimes phenomena may appear to be new, if you have the inclination and the time to spare, you can often find they're just the same old things as they were in the past, only technology and culture have dressed them a little differently. A phone call is now a text message, a letter's an email, a catalogue is a website, games have moved from the board to the computer and we still hang out - though it's more often online than in person nowadays. Being mean to each other is certainly not new. Bullying isn't either. So why does the anti-cyber-bullying movement seem to have so much vigour?

This is an important place to pause. Get a coffee. Relax for a minute. Before we pick up the cyber-ball and run with it, let's be sure we understand the game we're playing. The term seems straightforward. Cyber-bullying. Okay, I get that. It's bullying, but sexier - its cyber. But what is that, really? The definition of cyber is "a prefix; involving, using or relating to computers, especially the internet". Bullying is defined as "to hurt or frighten someone who is smaller or less powerful than you, often forcing them to do something they do not want to do" . So, cyber-bullying, by that definition, is to hurt or frighten someone less powerful, using an ICT as the platform or setting.

This is where it gets a little messy. The term bullying has evolved and the word has adopted a different meaning in society. Bullying-related websites and school boards include in their definition of bullying terms like 'repeated' or 'persistent'. This aspect is significant, in that isolated incidents are seen as 'acts of meanness' and only recurrent 'acts of meanness' are considered bullying. So, when given this context, it is only considered bullying if it is frequent or repetitive. This difference is significant and we will discuss that later.

So we know what bullying is. We have researched the age-old phenomena and its consequences for young people. Bullying can be a factor in the development of long-term emotional and behavioural issues like depression, unhealthy self-image and self-esteem, self-harm and even suicide. As a result of this we have educated our youth, created environments where bullying is minimised and policed this aspect of their behaviour with enthusiasm. And it appeared to have worked. Kind of.

Along came a new sensation! Kids may have shifted their focus from the better-policed, more traditional types of bullying (physical, verbal and those nasty little notes written in class), but they have found a new platform for nastiness - ICTs like instant messenging, internet chat rooms and mobile phones. Young people can now be bullied anytime, anywhere. But are they?

Research is up and running. How much cyber-bullying is out there? What is the damage on our youth? There is a smorgasbord of websites available to choose from on the internet. Cyber-bullying is out of control - protect your kids! We'll show you how! Subscribe here. Buy our book…

In the rush for naming rights, internet hits and market share it appears that some individuals have put the cart before the horse. Though in some cases it's not even a horse - it may very well be a donkey. So, you might ask what my problem is. We should be trying our hardest, protecting our kids! How dare I be critical of those trying to help! The thing is, I agree with the sentiment. We should be maximising the lessons, whilst minimising the damage as our kids grow into adulthood. That's not the issue. So, what is?

Cyber-bullying could certainly be a big problem. I'm just not sure we all know what it is. The National Crime Prevention Council in the USA states cyber-bullying "happens when teens use the Internet, cell phones, or other devices to send or post text or images intended to hurt or embarrass another person" . The popular website, stopcyber-bullying.org defines cyber-bullying as "when a child, preteen or teen is tormented, threatened, harassed, humiliated, embarrassed or otherwise targeted by another child, preteen or teen using the Internet, interactive and digital technologies or mobile phones" . These two significant references both fail to acknowledge that bullying involves repetition or persistence, and they're not alone.

Only recently, the cyberbullying research centre changed its definition of cyber-bullying to include the word repeated, so at least some organisations are catching on. These guys claim to be "dedicated to providing up-to-date information", but I'm not convinced. Unfortunately, they still present their research, about cyber-harassment and not cyber-bullying, as the latter. There's no point changing their definition if they are still going to mislead people with their research.

Researching cyber-bullying can be risky, especially if we haven't clarified what it is. Many recent studies have also failed to recognise the repetitive nature of bullying, mistaking cyber-harassment and general cyber-meanness for the phenomenon. Misusing the term becomes a problem when the two issues are distinctly different. If it's referred to as cyber-bullying, it doesn't matter how you define it in the introduction, people will still derive its meaning from, and associate it with, traditional bullying. Academics and the like must take responsibility for this fact and address it in any future research. If it's not actually cyber-bullying, don't use the term to simply get more citations on your paper or hits on Google scholar!


If names are not correct, language will not be in accordance with the truth of things ~ Confucius.


Again, you might ask, what's the big deal? Am I being pedantic? After all, we're just trying to help the kids. It is a big deal, and I'll tell you why. We don't know yet how widespread cyber-bullying really is. A lot of research has been conducted into cyber-harassment that has been misnamed as cyber-bullying. Claims that this research is valid for cyber-bullying are untrue, and statistics of prevalence should be treated with caution. We also don't know what the short or long-term effects of cyber-bullying are and if they are consistent with traditional bullying. There has been some preliminary research in which cyber-bullying was only "weakly associated with social anxiety, but not depression" . Perhaps kids are far more resilient than we think and cyber-bullying is simply a social norm?

Many assumptions have however been made about cyber-bullying and causal relationships have been claimed. Suicides that are linked in any way to cyber-bullying have been highly publicised in the media. How can we be certain that the cyber-bullying, as claimed, was the single cause? It may be that cyber-bullying played its part; however there are many factors that lead to this kind of action. The retrievable nature of information posted on the internet could be what has made cyber-bullying look like the smoking gun.

There is plenty of advice on the internet about how to deal with cyber-bullying, though it looks somewhat similar to the approach taken with traditional bullying. I'd argue that cyber-bullying is a separate construct, and needs to be treated as such. The assumption that the two forms of abuse can be approached in the same fashion is a dangerous one to make.

Cyber-bullying is potentially a very serious issue. The nature of contemporary ICTs means that young people could potentially be exposed to the phenomenon at any time of the day. However, the approach taken to address cyber-bullying seems to me to be somewhat misdirected. Serious steps need to be taken to decouple it from cyber-harassment and traditional bullying in order for research to move forward. So forget about the fanfare and let's get moving.

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