2007 Cyberbullying/Online Predator Statistics
A few weeks ago, the Working to Halt Online Abuse-Kids/Teens Division (WHOA-KTD) released the results of a survey conducted last year on Cyberbullying and Online Predators. Some great material in here. I am paraphrasing from their blog post on the subject, and have requested a formal document that I can post here and also share.
Here are some highlights:
395 school students participated in the survey. The study was made up of 193 males and 202 females who ranged in ages from 11 to 19 years old and were spread out in grades six through twelve.
- 28% of students have been cyberbullied
- Just over half tell their parents or another adult about it
- 65% reported the cyberbullying was via IM, followed by email, MySpace, chat rooms and online games
- 43% were cyberbullied by someone their age or in the same grade
- Of the students who did not report the cyberbullying, 25% felt it wasn’t a big problem or didn’t want to make a big deal out of it
- 30% blocked or deleted the cyberbully, while 16% ignored them
- Surprisingly, 54 students admitted they had bullied somebody online themselves.
- When questioned if they had ever been contacted by a stranger while they were online, 165 said yes. That contact was facilitated via IM (AOL, MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, or other), followed by MySpace or Chat (AOL, Yahoo or other), Email and online gaming web sites. To a lesser degree, contact was also made through eBay or other auction sites, text messages/SMS, websites, blogs and Xanga.
Clearly, as I’ve noted before, cyberbullying is the major issue with kids. In the age of anonymous bullying and the ability to reach more people, faster, with online slander, cyberbullying is a serious problem that parents need to be aware of and be proactive in stopping. It is the perfect reason to use PC Pandora monitoring software. You need to know if your child is a victim and not saying anything (which, most often, is the case); you also need to know if your child is the bully so you can stop it!
For complete protection of your children and your family, KNOW what they are doing online with monitoring software like our PC Pandora.
