Bullying y ciberbullying: victimización, acoso y daño. Necesidad de intervenir en el entorno escolar

Abstract

This work focusses on cyberbullying, analysing the results of a survey administered to a representative sample of Spanish internet users aged between 9 and 16. The data show that harassment on digital devices is part of the climate of violence among pre-teenagers and teenagers, where face-to-face bullying is much higher than online bullying. Although bullying occurs in different ways, and these tend to overlap, the most frequent form is offline bullying. The prevalence of cyberbullying varies considerably by age, tending to increase as the subjects' age increases, whereas offline bullying decreases among 15-16-year-olds. The boundary between victims and perpetrators is difficult to sketch in cyberbullying as three out of four children who admit having treated others in a hurtful or nasty way on the Internet or with mobile phones have themselves been treated in this way by others. The evidence regarding 13-14-year-olds is especially worrying as they are more involved in cyberbullying and a great many of them say they have felt very upset when victimized. The results display a need to prevent and deal with cyberbullying at school, as this is the most effective and equitable site for intervention.