Teens Standing up to Cyber Bullies on Facebook

It’s Back to School & Cyberbulling

It’s back to school time. Many schools will be starting this week or the next. It’s the time to think about new classes, new teachers, perhaps new friends, but also a time to think about the many issues in present youth culture.

One of the biggest is cyberbullying. According to a new study, 1 in 4 kids claim to be targets of cyberbullying, nearly 2 of 3 teens have witnessed cruel behavior online, but only 10% of parents are aware that their own teens are one of the recipients. Most of these attacks happen on Facebook where a whopping 92.6% of teens say cruel behavior takes place. It also happens through other mediums such as Twitter 23.8%, MySpace (17.7%), and Instant Messenger 15.2%.

Is Standing up to Bullies Online Safe?

But what is interesting is how teens stand up to bullies more often online. 40% tells them to stop, nearly 21% ended up telling an adult, while 65.8% responded to the attacker. In the small security of not being physically present, teens respond more frequently.

However, beware, 35% of students also end up responding in person and 4.5% of the teens end up in physical fights. 15% avoided school altogether due to an online incident. Worse, 6.3% of people join in the attack.

It is important that parents are aware of what is going on in the online space because it can have dramatic impact on teens especially during the difficult and emotional years of youth. If your child is is often emotionally down or wants to avoid school, you should be aware that cyberbulling is not a simple issues to be ignored. If that doesn’t move you, know that teens who are cyberbullied are 3.5x MORE likely to attempt suicide! Now that is a scary reality.

Check out the infographic below, and let us know your thoughts. Any of the statistics surprise you?

Cyberbullying Statistics Infographic

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5 Comments

  1. Last year, I discovered that my son (goes to middle school) was being cyber-bullied by a group of high-schoolers. I monitor his online activities and came to know about it this way. I wont go into the specifics, but a bunch of kids made a Facebook page where they put up embarrassing photoshopped pictures of kids online. I ended up filing a complaint although I’m pretty certain it was an exercise in futility. Bullying unfortunately is something that we have to live with, even in this day and age.

  2. hey mike,

    I am so sad to hear that. A group of high schoolers to a middle school student? Wow. But it’s so true… this is a real issue that I would guess most parents are not really aware of, especially when it involves their own kids.

    1. Parents are not aware because the kids are reluctant to tell them about it. If I were to guess, only a small fraction of kids would actually open up to their parents about something like this. I cannot say the statistics above surprise me, at all! Only10% of the parents actually know that their kids are being bullied on the internet, which is appalling.

      1. very true. All the more reason for parents to tactfully bring it up, perhaps as an indirect question like “Hey question for you, do you see a lot of bullying going on, on facebook or online?”… and of course don’t overreact if they say they have experienced it… lest you want your child to never tell you such things again. be cool, sensible and talk it out . that’s my thought

  3. Hello, thank you for sharing this post. the facts are really interesting and surprising. The amount of cyber bullying that takes place on Facebook is terrible, and parents should make sure they know what their children are doing on the internet to help prevent this from happening.

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