Report Finds Gender Differences in Victimization and Perpetration of Cyberbullying

A new report from the Cyberbullying Research Center, founded by scholars at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton and the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, finds that more than one third of all adolescents believe they have been victims of cyberbullying at some point in their life. And 17 percent of those surveyed said they had been cyberbullied within the past month. Some 12 percent of those surveyed admitted that they had been the perpetrator of cyberbullying.

Cyberbullying is defined by the research center as “when someone repeatedly and intentionally harasses, mistreats, or makes fun of another person online or while using cell phones or other electronic devices.” Data was collected in October 2016 from a nation sample of  5,700 middle and high school students between the ages of 12 and 17.

The data shows a gender gap in cyberbullying. Nearly 37 percent of adolescent girls reported they had been cyberbullied compared to 30.5 percent of adolescent boys. Boys were more likely than girls to have cyberbullied others. Some 7.7 percent of adolescent boys reported they had cyberbullied someone over the past 30 days compared to 4.4 percent of adolescent girls.

The authors note that “the type of cyberbullying tends to differ by gender; girls were more likely to say someone spread rumors about them online while boys were more likely to say that someone threatened to hurt them online.”