Online Harassment - How Much Is There?

An Associated Press piece in the Baltimore Sun, Studies Spotlight Effect of Online Harassment, notes that finding statistics on cyberbullying is difficult. One problem is the way the questions about online communication are asked. Another problem is that what upsets some children may not upset others. A study on cyberbullying found that 1 in 3 children experienced bullying online, while another more recent study said that the percentage was 1 in every 10 children. No matter what the percentage is, cyberbullying, like bullying in person, continues to be a problem in schools and neighborhoods. It is interesting that one of these studies found that most (64%) children who are bullied online aren't also bullied in person and that most online bullying consists of brief encounters. Encounters that continue, according to the article, might better be termed harassment rather than cyberbullyig. With all this in mind, the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention is attempting to study how electronic communication (email, text messaging, blogging, social networking, instant messaging etc.) affects children.