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The largest ever study into bullying among teenagers in England suggests that concerns about cyberbullying may be overblown, with traditional real-world bullying still hugely outstripping it.
Read more: The secret online world of British teens: how streaks, deep likes and ghosting define young lives
The study, carried out by two professors from the University of Oxford, provides an evidence-based look at a sensitive area that has, in the past, been sensationalised. The coauthors, who call for “interventions that holistically target both forms bullying in adolescence”, highlight that their findings are “in stark contrast to media reports”. They point specifically to a January report in the Mirror that claimed nearly half of parents believed their children were more likely to be bullied online than in the playground. But the new study, published in the Lancet Child and Adolescent Health, finds this is not the case.
The survey reported in the Mirror was problematic, firstly because it was based on parents' perceptions of their children’s safety, not necessarily the reality, and secondly because it was conducted by Symantec, a firm that sells Norton security software for families. A blog post penned by one of Symantec’s own staff on the topic begins with the individual sharing his own fatherly experiences, emphatically flagging up the most serious concerns (“cyberbullying is a growing problem on the internet and one that as a parent you may underestimate”) before listing the best defence strategies - and corresponding Norton software.
Andrew Przybylski, a co-author on the new paper, calls the Mirror article’s claims “pretty disturbing” and points to the “implausibly high numbers” quoted in the press when it comes to online bullying.
“People are rightly taking cyberbullying quite seriously, but we must hold cyberbullying to the same standards as traditional [bullying],” he tells WIRED. “We wanted to get an accurate measure of what was going on.”
The new study is based on confidential questionnaires filled out by 120,115 teenagers, who were asked to rate how often they were bullied in the past two months, including details on the type of bullying and its impact. Around a third reported regular bullying, with more girls suffering than boys. Of those that were frequently bullied, 27 per cent were only bullied in the real world, and less than one per cent were only bullied online. Three per cent were bullied using both tactics, with the nature of the reports leading the coauthors to conclude that cyberbullying, rather than being a standalone phenomenon, was in fact an added tactic of traditional bullies.
“We don’t have unlimited resources to shepherd young people into adulthood,” Przybylski says. “It’s really important that we spend resources developing solid interventions that work. Starting at an area of over-caution and myth could distract from meaningful interventions.”
Przybylski and his co-author Lucy Bowes plan on sending the study to a number of governmental advisory boards, including Ofcom and the UK Council for Child Internet Safety, in the hopes the data will lead to investment and education without scaremongering. They have already been approached by a representative of the NSPCC interested in looking at the data. All of the data from the report is therefore publicly available.
The UK Council for Child Internet Safety has, in the past, been associated with recommendations for quite extreme measures, like default blocking of online pornography at an ISP level. But Przybylski hopes the study will make a meaningful impact on the Council's ultimate recommendationss when it consults on the cyberbullying issue.
“These things can be typically led by a concern of the day - internet pornography, child grooming etc. Pretty blunt things come out,” he says. Before recommending default filter blocks, for instance, “no one bothered to see if it works.”
This is why transparent data is vital to the debate, he says. “It’s the thing that separates a report from an opinion.”
“[The alternative might] sell newspapers, and communicate that something is being done about something that sounds scary," he adds. "It is really easy to confuse outrage with action.”
In its conclusion, The Lancet report states: “Our findings support the urgent need for evidence-based interventions that holistically target both forms bullying in adolescence and are in stark contrast to media reports and the popular perceptions that young people are now more likely to be victims of cyberbullying than traditional forms. That understood, as internet connectivity becomes an increasingly intrinsic part of modern childhood, initiatives fostering resilience in online and every day contexts will be needed.”
Przybylski and Bowes are now looking at whether cyberbullying stats change over time. So far, says Przybylski, “the rates have been pretty consistent”. To get a full picture, we would need this kind of study to be carried out annually. But this, he says, would be expensive. “There has to be political will.”
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
