Transcript TITLE OF PRESENTATION

Cyberbullying
What the research is telling us…
Amanda Lenhart
Youth Online Safety Working Group
May 6, 2010
Washington, DC
Sources & Methodology
• Pew: Interviewed 800 parent-child pairs in Sept
2009, 700 parent-child pairs in November 2007
and 935 parent – child pairs in Oct-Nov 2006
• Teens ages 12-17
• Nationally representative sample
------------• Journal of Adolescent Health Special Issue (2007)
• UNH Crimes Against Children Research Center
data (YISS-1 & YISS-2) (Wolak, Finkelhor et al)
• Internet Solutions for Kids (Growing up with
Media)(Ybarra et al)
• Hinduja & Patchin
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Teen internet use basics
• 93% of teens 12-17 go online
• 63% of online teens go online daily
• 89% of online teens go online from home, and
most of them go online from home most often
• 77% of teen go online at school
• 71% go online from friends or relatives house
• 60% go online from a library
• 27% go online on their mobile phone
• 76% of households with teens go online via
broadband, 10% via dial up, and 12% do not
have access at home.
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What are teens doing online?
• 94% go online to do research for school assignments; 48% do
so on a typical day.
• 81% go to websites about movies, TV shows, music groups, or
sports stars
• 64% of online teens have created some kind of content online
• 62% go online to get news
• 57% have watched a video on a video-sharing site like
YouTube or GoogleVideo
• 55% go online to get information about a college, university or
other school that they are thinking about attending.
• 48% have bought something online like books, clothes or
music
• 31% have looked online for health, dieting or physical fitness
information; 17% have looked online for sensitive health
information
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How else are teens connecting?
• 75% of teens have a cell phone
– No gender or race/ethnic differences in ownership
– 50% of teens with phones talk to friends daily
– 54% of teens send text messages daily
– 27% use their phone to go online
• 73% of teens use an online social network site
– 37% of SNS users send messages through social
networks daily
• 80% of teens have a game console
• 51% of teens have a portable gaming device
– Teens connect and interact with others online through
games
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Concerns in Online Safety Sphere
• Inappropriate contact
– Strangers
– Bullies
• Inappropriate content
– Accidental Exposure
– Deliberate Exposure
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Bullying
Olweus (1993)
“A person is bullied when he or she is exposed, repeatedly and over time, to
negative actions on the part of one or more other persons, and he or she
has difficulty defending himself or herself."
This definition includes three important components:
1. Bullying is aggressive behavior that involves unwanted, negative actions.
2. Bullying involves a pattern of behavior repeated over time
3. Bullying involves an imbalance of power or strength.”
Bullying
– Physical
– Relational/Verbal
-Internet
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Online Harassment & Cyberbullying
•
Online harassment: aggressive behavior, “harm doing,” insults,
denigration, impersonation, exclusion, outing, activities
associated with hacking – stealing information, breaking into
accounts, damaging websites, profiles etc. (Willard, 2006)
•
Cyberbullying: online harassment that is
– repeated over time
– Involves a power imbalance between a perpetrator and a
victim. Power imbalance may be differences in online skills.
•
Other complicating factor -- perpetrators are also often victims,
sometimes online, sometimes elsewhere. Internet bullying can be
particularly hard to disentangle. (Willard, 2006)
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What makes online harassment & bullying
different?
• Technology is vehicle
• Persistence of content
– Editable, alterable
• Distributability of content
– Speed
– Breadth
• Dis-inhibition over computer-mediated communication
• Invasive
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Pew Internet: Online Harassment
• 32% of online teens have experienced one of the
following forms of online harassment:
– 15% of teens reported having private material
(IM, txt, email) forwarded without permission
– 13% had received threatening messages
– 13% said someone had spread a rumor about
them online
– 6% had someone post an embarrassing picture
of them online without permission
(Lenhart, 2007)
• 26% of teens have been harassed via their cell
phones either by voice or text
(Lenhart, 2010)
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7/20/2015
11
Cyberbullying
• Other research shows prevalence of cyberbullying or
online harassment between 9% and 33% of youth ages
10-18. (Wolak et al, 2007, Ybarra et al, 2007)
• Much of the difference is definitional and depends on how
the question was asked. Specific activities often yield
higher levels of response than blanket definitions.
• Mid-teens (ages 14-17) is the age of greatest prevalence
of online harassment & bullying (Pew, 2007, Hinduja &
Patchin, 2008)
• Perpetrators of online bullying (similar to offline bullying)
are generally the same age as their victim. (Wolak, 2007)
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Frequency of bullying victimization among 11-16 year
olds
3% 3%
5%
Never
Less often than monthly
Once or twice a month
Once or twice a week
Everyday
27%
62%
(n=1,193)
(Ybarra, 2009)
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Online Harassment (2)
• Girls, particularly older girls, report more online
harassment; 38% of all online girls reported
experiencing some type of harassment (Pew,
2007)
• Social network users are also more likely to
report online harassment – 39% of SNS users
have experience it. (Pew, 2007)
• But most teens (67%) think bullying &
harassment happens more OFFLINE. (Pew,
2007)
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Frequency of bullying victimization among 11-16
year olds by environment
100%
90%
80%
70%
Everyday
Once or twice a week
Once or twice a month
Less often than monthly
Never
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
School
(Ybarra, 2009)
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Internet
Cell phone text
messaging
To and from
school
Some other place
(n=1,193)
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Online (or not) Harassment
• School is by far the most common place youth report
being bullied (31%) versus elsewhere (e.g., 13% online)
• The prevalence rate of Internet harassment (both
perpetration and victimization) appears to be stable (20062008).
• The majority (59%) of Internet harassment comes from
other minors
• Youth who report being harassed online report a myriad of
concurrent psychosocial problems offline, too
Source: Michele Ybarra & colleagues work on the 2005 Youth
Internet Safety Survey fielded by UNH CCRC & 2007-2008
Growing up with Media research funded by the CDC.
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Why should we worry?
•
Bullying is broadly associated with:
– School violence
– Delinquency
– Suicidal ideation
•
Bullied teens (and often bullies themselves) have higher levels of:
– Depression and other psychological problems
– Substance abuse
– Delinquency / School avoidance
– Weapon-carrying
– Poor parent/caregiver relationships
– Offline victimization/sexual abuse/physical abuse
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Why should we worry (2)?
• Some research suggests that significant portions
of teens aren’t bothered by online harassment or
bullying
• Research suggests that 1/3 of teens (34%) are
distressed by online harassment. (Wolak et al,
2007)
– Distressed = “Extremely or very upset or
afraid”
• Teens who are high internet users are more
likely to be distressed (Wolak, 2007)
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Overlap of cyberbullying & internet
victimization
(Ybarra, 2010)
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Differences between cyberbullying & internet
harassment
Cyberbullying is not more common than Internet
harassment
• On average (between 2007-2008): 37% were
harassed, 14% were bullied online in the past year
Cyberbullying is not more damaging than Internet
harassment
• Among those cyberbullied, 15% report being very /
extremely upset
• Among those harassed, between 17-34% report
being very / extremely upset
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Cell phone-based harassment
• 75% of teens have cell phones
• 54% of all teens text message daily
• 26% have been harassed through their cell
phone by voice calls or text messages
• 47% have sent a text message they regretted
sending
• And then there’s sexting – which is generally not
a form of harassment itself, but when the images
are shared, can lead to harassment and bullying.
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7/20/2015
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Sending Sexts
• No difference by gender
• Oldest teens most likely to have sent
– 8% of 17 year olds
– 4% of 12 year olds
• 17% who pay for all the costs of the
phone send sexts vs. 3% of others
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Receiving Sexts
• Again, no gender differences and
increases by age
– 4% of 12 year olds
– 20% of 16 year olds
– 30% of 17 year olds
• Sending texts, having unlimited texting
plan increases receipt
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Sexting Scenarios
1. Between two romantic partners, as a part
of, instead of, or as a prelude to sex –
never leaves couple
2. Between two romantic partners – but
shared with others
3. Between two people where at least one
would like to be in a relationship – shows
interest
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Element of coercion for some sexting
“When I was about 14-15 years old, I received/sent
these types of pictures. Boys usually ask for
them or start that type of conversation. My
boyfriend, or someone I really liked asked for
them. And I felt like if I didn’t do it, they wouldn’t
continue to talk to me. At the time, it was no big
deal. But now looking back it was definitely
inappropriate and over the line.” - 17 year old girl
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Summary
• Somewhere between 1/10th and 1/3rd of teens are
being bullied online
• Bullying still happens more offline – at school – than
online.
• For the majority of teens, it isn’t distressing, but for
a minority, cyberbullying is extremely serious and
paired with major problems that can affect their
lives, their schools and their community.
• Venues for bullying have diversified, and with it
comes increased visibility. But impulse behind
behaviors hasn’t changed – just the vehicle.
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Final Thoughts
• Need more high-quality, national data on this issue.
• Coordination in the definitions of cyberbullying.
• When thinking about solutions, important to
remember that bullying crosses boundaries – it’s
everywhere that children are
• Stay tuned for more work from Growing up with
Media study (Ybarra - CDC) and research on
cyberbullying and suicide by Hinduja & Patchin
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THANK YOU
Amanda Lenhart
Pew Internet & American Life Project
http://www.pewinternet.org
Twitter: @amanda_lenhart