The answer is yes, says Swedish psychologist Dan Olweus, a leading authority on school bullying and the creator of a highly regarded anti-bullying program for schools. In a recently published paper, Olweus argues that, contrary to media reports and adult fears, “cyberbullying,” or bullying through the use of electronic media, has a relatively low incidence. Moreover, it is neither increasing nor greatly expanding the number of bullies and victims. Most cyberbullies and victims are also involved in “traditional” face-to-face bullying, so the expansion of electronic communications has not exposed vastly more students to bullying.
In support of his conclusions, Olweus cites three, multi-year studies, two in the U.S. involving a total of 453,474 students, and one in Norway involving 9,000 students. An average of 17.2% of these students reported being victims of traditional, verbal bullying in school while 4.5% reported experiencing cyberbullying. For bullies, the prevalence was 9.6% for traditional bullying and 2.8% for cyberbullying.
In the face of such data, Olweus cautions against shifting the main focus of anti-bullying efforts to technical responses to cyberbullying. Such a redirection would leave the larger problem of traditional bullying unaddressed. In addition, because many students involved in cyberbullying also experience traditional bullying, establishing effective school measures against traditional forms of bullying will likely reduce the electronic kind as well.
