Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 2008, 49, 147–154 DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9450.2007.00611.

Personality and Social Sciences

Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Cyberbullying: Another main type of bullying?

ROBERT SLONJE and PETER K. SMITH
Goldsmiths College, University of London

Slonje, R. & Smith, P. K. (2008). Cyberbullying: Another main type of bullying? Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 49, 147–154.
Cyberbullying has recently emerged as a new form of bullying and harassment. 360 adolescents (12–20 years), were surveyed to examine the
nature and extent of cyberbullying in Swedish schools. Four categories of cyberbullying (by text message, email, phone call and picture/video
clip) were examined in relation to age and gender, perceived impact, telling others, and perception of adults becoming aware of such bullying.
There was a significant incidence of cyberbullying in lower secondary schools, less in sixth-form colleges. Gender differences were few. The
impact of cyberbullying was perceived as highly negative for picture/video clip bullying. Cybervictims most often chose to either tell their
friends or no one at all about the cyberbullying, so adults may not be aware of cyberbullying, and (apart from picture/video clip bullying) this
is how it was perceived by pupils. Findings are discussed in relation to similarities and differences between cyberbullying and the more traditional
forms of bullying.
Key words: Bully, victim, cyber, text message, email, mobile phone, internet.
Robert Slonje, Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths College, New Cross, London SE14 6NW, UK. Tel: +44-207-919-7898; fax: +44-207-919-7873;
e-mail: r.slonje@gold.ac.uk

INTRODUCTION occurs through modern technological devices, and specifically

“Bullying” is often defined as being an aggressive, intentional
act or behavior that is carried out by a group or an individual
repeatedly and over time against a victim who cannot easily
defend him or herself (Whitney & Smith, 1993; Olweus, 1999).
Bullying is a form of abuse that is based on an imbalance of
power; it can be defined as a systematic abuse of power
(Smith & Sharp, 1994; Rigby, 2002).
Most researchers in the area of bullying, and of aggression
more generally, distinguish several main types (Rigby, 1997).
The most common categories are physical, verbal, and indirect
or relational. Physical aggression includes hitting, kicking,
punching, taking or damaging belongings; of these, attacks
on property might be considered separately (e.g. Kristensen
& Smith, 2003). Verbal aggression includes teasing, taunting,
threatening. Both these are usually direct or face-to-face types
of aggression. In the 1980s, aggression and bullying were
primarily seen as direct physical or verbal attacks.
During the 1990s, through the work of Björkqvist (Björkqvist,
Lagerspetz and Kaukiainen, 1992), Crick (Crick & Grotpeter,
1995), and others, the scope has been broadened to include
indirect aggression (done via a third party); and relational
aggression (done to damage someone’s peer relationships),
or the similar social aggression (done to damage self-esteem
and/or social status) (Underwood, 2002). Most researchers,
and indeed most pupils (Monks & Smith, 2006) now consider
indirect aggression, such as spreading nasty stories, and
relational/social aggression or social exclusion, such as tell-
ing others not to play with someone, as forms of bullying.
In recent years a new form of aggression or bullying has
emerged, labeled “cyberbullying”, in which the aggression
mobile phones or the internet. Research on this topic is still
at an early stage of investigation; the phenomenon only
appeared a few years ago, as the use of electronic devices
such as computers and mobile phones by young people has
increased.
Previous research on cyberbullying
The studies carried out so far have been mostly confined to
examining just one aspect of cyberbullying (for example, text
messaging), or have been carried out as just one part of a
larger research program. None, so far as we are aware, have
been carried out in Scandinavia.
In the UK, the NCH (formerly National Children’s Home)
(2005) surveyed 770 children aged 11–19 years in England;
20% had been cyberbullied or threatened, and 11% claimed
to have sent a bullying or threatening message to someone
else. Noret and Rivers (2006) reported a study of 11,227
pupils in England aged 11–15 years, who were asked if they
had ever received any nasty or threatening text messages or
emails. Nearly 7% reported this at least “once in a while”,
girls more than boys. Over a 4-year period from 2002 to
2005 there was some increase, mainly in girls.
Smith, Mahdavi, Carvalho and Tippett (2006) reported
a detailed study of 92 students aged 11–16 years, from 14
schools in London. They divided cyberbullying into seven
different subcategories: text message bullying, picture/video
clip bullying (through mobile phones), phone call bullying
(via mobile phones), email bullying, chat-room bullying,
bullying through instant messaging and bullying via web-
sites. Prevalence rates over the last couple of months differed

© 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 The Scandinavian Psychological Associations. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 9600
Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA. ISSN 0036-5564.
148 R. Slonje and P. K. Smith
in terms of various subcategories as well as where the cyber-
bullying occurred, i.e. at school or outside school.
In Canada, Li (2006) surveyed 264 students from three
junior high schools. About 25% had been victims of cyber-
bullying, and about 17% had cyberbullied others (these figures
presumably referring to if students had ever done this). In
Australia, Campbell (2005) reported that 14% of 120 year
eight students from one school had been targeted by cyber-
bullying, and 11% had cyberbullied others in the past year.
In the USA, Ybarra and Mitchell (2004) surveyed internet
use in 1,501 youths aged 10–17 years who were all regular
internet users. Over the last year, 12% reported being aggressive
to someone online, 4% were targets of aggression, and 3%
were both aggressors and targets. These authors hypothesized
that some victims of conventional bullying may use the internet
to attack others, in a form of compensation. In a follow-up,
Ybarra, Mitchell, Wolak and Finkelhor (2006) found that
9% of the youths had been targets of internet harassment –
38% of internet victims reported distress as a result (this
was greater for preadolescents aged 10 –12 years; and less for
harassment in chat rooms compared to blogging or instant
messaging).
Raskauskas and Stoltz (2007) surveyed 84 students from
two high schools in the USA, aged 13–18 years, on experi-
ences of three types of cyberbullying over the last school
year; 49% reported being electronic victims (compared to
71% being traditional victims; these high figures stem from
including “1–2 times” in the definition). In addition, 21%
reported being electronic bullies (compared to 64% tradi-
tional bullies). Many cybervictims were also traditional
victims, and most cyberbullies were also traditional bullies.
The hypothesis that traditional victims might also be cyber-
bullies (from Ybarra & Mitchell, 2004) was also tested, but
was not supported.
Some emerging themes from the cyberbullying literature
The published literature on cyberbullying, together with an
increasing number of websites on the topic, has identified a
number of features of cyberbullying that often distinguish it
from most traditional forms of bullying. One is the difficulty
of getting away from it. Unlike traditional forms of school
bullying, where once the victim gets home they are away from
the bullying until the next day, with cyberbullying the victim
may continue to receive text messages or emails wherever they
are. Another is the breadth of potential audience. Cyber-
bullying can reach particularly large audiences in a peer group
compared with the small groups that are the usual audience
in traditional bullying. For example, when someone down-
loads a picture or video clip with intention to embarrass the
person in the clip, the audience that may see these clips/
videos can be very large. Another common characteristic of
cyberbullying is the invisibility of those doing the bullying:
cyberbullying is not a face-to-face experience, and (like
rumor-spreading) provides those doing the bullying with
© 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 The Scandinavian Psychological Associations.
Scand J Psychol 49 (2008)
some degree of “invisibility” and at times anonymity. Follow-
ing on from this, compared to most traditional bullying, the
person carrying out cyberbullying may be less aware or even
unaware of the consequences caused by his or her actions.
Without such direct feedback there may be fewer opportu-
nities for empathy or remorse and there may also be less
opportunity for bystander intervention.
Aims and hypotheses
The aims of the current study were to explore the nature of
cyberbullying in a sample of Swedish adolescents. There has
been no published research on cyberbullying in Sweden (to
our knowledge), even though Sweden is a nation with one of
the longest usage of mobile phones. Furthermore, Sweden
has a long culture of work on traditional bullying, with lower
prevalence rates as one possible outcome: Sweden and
England actually have had the lowest reported rates of bullying
behavior among 13-year-olds, in 1997–98 (World Health
Organization, 2002).
We aimed to investigate prevalence rates in four main
categories of cyberbullying (text messaging, email, phone call
and picture/video clip). Although phone call bullying may
not always be included as cyberbullying, we included it here
as one of the three aspects of mobile phone use. The four
categories were chosen due to their high prevalence rates in
Smith et al.’s (2006) study (the other internet categories
apart from email – bullying via chat-room, instant messaging,
and websites – were not used, due to their low incidence, and
to keep the questionnaire length within the attention span of
adolescents).
We examined incidence both inside and outside school.
Despite some difficulty in demarcating where an episode of
cyberbullying occurs, this aspect is of importance to investigate;
if more cyberbullying occurs outside school, as found by
Smith et al. (2006) in the UK, then schools may perceive
that the responsibility to tackle cyberbullying issues does not
lie mainly with them.
There is little data on whether those involved in cyber-
bullying as bullies or victimized) are involved in just one type,
or several types. We aimed to address this; and also to see if
there was evidence for traditional victims being cyberbullies,
as found by Ybarra and Mitchell (2004). We were also interested
in whether victims knew the identity and number of those
who cyberbullied them.
We also examined age and gender differences. Both theory
and empirical findings provide mixed expectations in this
respect. Regarding age, most self-report studies of being
bullied in traditional ways find a decrease with age after 11
years through to school leaving age (Smith, Madsen &
Moody, 1999). On the other hand, the opportunity for
cyberbullying may increase with age as older pupils more
often will have mobile phones or access to the internet. Most
studies on cyberbullying have not examined age as a factor.
Smith et al. (2006) found no age differences in the 11–16
Scand J Psychol 49 (2008)
year age range, but the sample was small. Ybarra and
Mitchell (2004) found that older students (15+ years) were
more often internet aggressors than younger students (10–
14 years).
Expectations regarding gender might also be mixed. Boys
have rather consistently been more frequent perpetrators of
physical bullying; with less difference for verbal aggression,
and many findings of at least relatively more girl involve-
ment in indirect or relational bullying. Because most cyber-
bullying is not face-to-face, the gender balance in bullying
might be skewed more towards girls than is found for
conventional bullying. Many studies have not reported on
gender differences, but where they have, discrepancies have
emerged. Smith et al. (2006) found that girls were significantly
more likely to be cyberbullied, especially by text messages
and phone calls, than boys. Li (2006) found no gender
difference for being a cyberbullying victim; but that cyber-
bullying others was nearly twice as high in boys than girls.
Ybarra and Mitchell (2004) found no significant gender
differences for internet aggressors or victims.
Another aspect we aimed to study was the perceived impact
of cyberbullying, compared to traditional bullying. Again,
expectations are diverse here. On the one hand, the common
characteristics of cyberbullying reviewed above (difficult to
escape from, breadth of potential audience, anonymity of
perpetrator) might be expected to lead to greater negative
impact on those experiencing it. On the other hand, nasty
text messages or emails can be simply deleted and future
messages blocked; and there is no actual physical hurt.
Ybarra and Mitchell (2004) reported that 33% of victims felt
very or extremely upset after the occurrence of internet
aggression, whilst Ybarra et al. (2006) reported that 38% of
the victims felt distress. Smith et al. (2006) compared the
effect of cyberbullying to traditional bullying and found that
picture/video clip and phone call bullying were perceived as
having a higher negative impact compared to that of tradi-
tional bullying, text message roughly equal and email bully-
ing as having a lower impact. We examined impact from the
general perceptions of our student sample. These perceptions
are of interest in their own right, but also as an indication
of how sympathetically students might respond to the
plight of a victim. Most often victims turn to their friends
(non-victims) for help, and if their friends underestimate the
impact of cyberbullying, victims may find it hard to receive
adequate support.
A final aim of the study was to examine whether victims
seek help by telling anyone of experiences of cyberbullying,
and if so, whom. Since bullying is by definition something
that it is difficult for the victim to defend him or herself
against, seeking help or telling someone is a generally recom-
mended strategy by schools. NCH (2005) found that 28%
of victims of cyberbullying had told nobody about it, and
Smith et al. (2006) found that around one-third had told no
one. These proportions are in fact comparable to findings
for traditional bullying. However, combined with the new
© 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 The Scandinavian Psychological Associations.
Cyberbullying 149
nature and incidence of much cyberbullying, it does raise the
issue of the extent to which teachers and parents are aware
of the possibility of the different forms of cyberbullying, and
would notice if it was happening. In relation to this, we also
asked students for their perceptions of how much adults
are aware of the occurrence of cyberbullying, compared to
traditional bullying. We hypothesized that pupils would
perceive adults as less aware of cyberbullying than tradi-
tional bullying, due to the recency of the cyberbullying
phenomenon. If students believe that adults are less aware of
cyberbullying, they may be less willing to report it to them.
METHOD
Questionnaire
The questionnaire used was adapted from Smith et al. (2006); but
omitting the three least frequent categories of cyberbullying and
adding a question on perception of whether adults would notice the
occurrence of cyberbullying. It gave a standard definition of bullying
taken from the Olweus Bully/Victim questionnaire (Olweus, 1996)
[mobbning in Swedish], and mentioned cyberbullying [cybermobbn-
ing] as bullying through text messaging, email, mobile phone calls or
picture/video clip. It started with general questions on the frequency
of being a victim of bullying (of any kind) (“First of all, have you
been bullied at school in the past couple of months (any kind of
bullying, including cyberbullying)?”), and of cyberbullying, at school
(“Now, just thinking about cyberbullying, how often have you been
cyberbullied at school in the past couple of months?”). It followed
with a series of questions on each type of cyberbullying (email is
given as the exemplar); first for frequency of being victimized (“How
often have you been bullied through email in the past couple of
months?”), and frequency of taking part in bullying others (e.g.
“Have you bullied others through email in the past couple of
months?”), separately for “in school” [under skoltid in Swedish] and
“outside of school” [efter skoltid]; followed by perceived impact of
this kind of bullying (“Do you think email bullying compared to
‘ordinary, traditional’ bullying has less/same/more of an effect on
the victim?”, with the opportunity to give reasons), the chance of
adults noticing the occurrence of cyberbullying to a smaller, equal
or greater proportion in comparison to traditional bullying (“Do
you think email bullying compared to ‘ordinary, traditional’ bully-
ing has less/same/more of a chance to be noticed by an adult?”, with
the opportunity to give reasons), who did the bullying (“In which
class is the student or students who bullies you through email?”,
“Have you been bullied through email by boys or girls?”), and who
if anyone was told of the bullying (“Have you told anyone that you
have been bullied through email?”). It ended with space for any
further comments to be written in.
The questionnaire asked about what had occurred in the last 2–3
months. In practice pupils were told both in writing and verbally to
think of incidences that had happened since the start of term (in late
August) and since questionnaires were given in November 2005, this
represented about two and a half months. The frequency questions
had a five-point scale, from e.g. “I have not been bullied/bullied
others” (scored 1), “only once or twice” (2), “two or three times a
month” (3), “once a week” (4), to “several times a week” (scored 5).
The original questionnaire was in English, so a translation to
Swedish was made by the first author who is bilingual. A small-scale
pilot was carried out to ensure clarity and ease of use in a Swedish
school, asking participants to read through all of the vital informa-
tion and comment on any unclear statements. A few minor changes
were made in wording as a result.
150 R. Slonje and P. K. Smith
Participants
Eight mixed gender schools in the city of Gothenburg, Sweden,
were approached on a random basis. All pupils at the schools that
were approached agreed to participate. The schools included pupils
that varied in terms of socioeconomic status. Four schools were
lower secondary (students aged 12–15), and four were sixth-form
colleges (students aged 15–20). (The age groups overlap since it is
possible to start sixth-form college at age 15 dependent upon what
time of year the student is born, as well as at what age the pupil
starts his/her first grade). At each school one class of each grade
(grades 7, 8 and 9 in lower secondary and grades 1, 2 and 3 in sixth-
form college) were randomly chosen to participate in the study. Fol-
lowing exclusion of eight participants from analysis due to highly
incomplete questionnaires or very inconsistent answers, the final
number of participants was 360 students. Of these 210 were in lower
secondary (111 boys, 99 girls) and 150 were in sixth form (92 boys,
58 girls). The mean age of the whole sample was 15.3 years. Some
analyses were carried out just on lower secondary pupils, splitting
into 12–13 years (41 boys, 39 girls), 14 years (39 boys, 43 girls), and
15 years (31 boys, 17 girls).
In Gothenburg, all lower secondary students as well as sixth-form
college students receive and have access to an individual email
through their school. In Sweden 96% of 15–17 year olds own a
mobile phone (Orvesto Konsument, 2005); we do not have Swedish
data for younger pupils, but in the UK the Mobile Life Report
(2006) found that from 12 years over 91% of young people have a
mobile phone; there is no reason to suppose that Sweden is very
different in this respect.
Procedure
Pupils were handed the questionnaire in their classrooms, by the
first author, who explained the term cyberbullying and supervised
the filling in of the questionnaire. The anonymity of the study was
emphasized. It was stressed that no one at their school would have
the opportunity to read any specific questionnaires. Each pupil was
handed an envelope in which to enclose their completed question-
naire, and seal it. The questionnaire took approximately 20 minutes
to complete. All students agreed to participate informally; formal
and written consent was given by each head teacher. Students were
advised that participation was optional, they were free not to
answer any specific questions, and that they could withdraw at any
time (in fact, no pupils did withdraw). At the end, all participants
were handed a debriefing sheet including information about how to
seek help or advice if they or a friend was experiencing any prob-
lems due to bullying or cyberbullying. This procedure was approved
by the appropriate institutional ethical committee.
Analysis
Analysis of categorical data is made using chi-square. The frequency
data (five-point scales) were used for MANOVA and ANOVA, as in
previous studies using the Olweus questionnaire on which this was
based (Solberg & Olweus, 2003). We also add pupil comments from
open-ended questions, where appropriate to particular sections.
RESULTS
Overall frequency data
When participants were initially asked whether they had
been bullied at school (any type of bullying) in the last
couple of months, 10.0% said yes: 6.4% just once or twice,
© 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 The Scandinavian Psychological Associations.
Scand J Psychol 49 (2008)
and 3.6% more frequently. The rate for being bullied was
much higher in lower secondary (15.2%) than for sixth-form
college (2.7%); highly significant on a two-way (school
system; gender) ANOVA on frequency scores, F(1,356) = 14.01,
p < 0.001.
For being cyberbullied in the last couple of months inside
school, the incidence was 5.3%; 2.8% just once or twice, and
2.5% more frequently. Again the rate was much higher in lower
secondary (9.0%) than in sixth-form college (0%), highly
significant on a 2-way ANOVA, F(1,355) = 11.61, p < 0.001.
Gender was not significant for either being bullied (any
type) or for being cyberbullied; nor was the gender by school
system interaction.
Rates for being a cybervictim were somewhat increased
when pupils came to answer the specific questions on the
four different types of cyberbullying, both inside and outside
school. Looking at whether pupils responded yes to being a
victim of any of the four types of cyberbullying, either in or
out of school, 11.7% said yes; rates were 17.6% in lower
secondary, 3.3% in sixth-form college. The incidence of being
cyberbullied inside school was 5.8%, more than the 5.3% in
the initial global question (an extra two students, perhaps
prompted by the detailed questions into greater recognition
or recall that the four types were examples of being a
cybervictim).
The overall cybervictim rate (i.e. someone who checked
any one of the four types, in or out of school, for “once or
twice” or more frequently), was 17.6% in lower secondary
and 3.3% in sixth-form college ( χ(21) = 17.33, p < 0.001),
corresponding to 11.7% in the whole sample. Gender was
non-significant, with 5.6% girl victims, and 6.1% boy victims.
Taking a similar definition of cyberbullying others, this
was admitted by 10.3% of pupils: 11.9% in lower secondary,
8.0% in sixth-form college. Neither school type nor gender
were significant on chi-square, although there was a trend
for more boys (7.2%) to be cyberbullies than girls (3.1%),
( χ(21) = 3.23, p = 0.102).
In the sixth-form sample there were only 1.4% cybervictims,
and no more than 0.6% for any one form of cyberbullying;
so analyses on the other aspects of being cyberbullied were
confined to the lower secondary sample. One participant in
sixth-form college commented on how it might be less fre-
quent in that setting: “I don’t really know how usual this
phenomena is but I have heard about it on Aktuellt [a news
program] and similar. I believe it is more common amongst
younger [pupils], because in my class (grade 3) I can’t
imagine that any one would expose anyone else to such an
insulting treatment. I find this treatment extremely imma-
ture and a sign of lacking respect for people’s equal worth
and freedom”.
Types of cyberbullying in and out of school
The percentages of lower secondary pupils involved in
different types of cyberbullying (both victims and bullies)
Scand J Psychol 49 (2008)
Table 1. Prevalence rates of cyberbullying, in percentages, for lower secondary pupils that have been cyberbullied in the last 2–3 months (n = 210)
Type of cyberbullying Inside school
Text message Victim 2.4
Bully 4.3
Email Victim 3.8
Bully 5.2
Phone call Victim 2.9
Bully 2.9
Picture/video clip Victim 4.8
Bully 1.9
Total: any type of cyberbullying Victim 9.0
Bully 9.0
are shown in Table 1, by location (inside or outside school;
and total for either inside or outside). The total at the bottom
refers to participation in any type of cyberbullying. Overall,
email bullying was most frequent. However frequencies vary
by location, and by victim/bully perspective.
Being a victim of cyberbullying occurred to a greater
extent outside school compared to inside school, for all
types. This difference was significant separately for frequency
of text message victimization, t(209) = 2.38, p < 0.05, and
phone call victimization, t(209) = 2.94, p < 0.05. For bullying
others, the trend was similar (except for text message
bullying); but only significant for email bullying, t(209) = 2.35,
p < 0.05.
One participant reflected on the impact cyberbullying
outside school may have: “I believe that cyberbullying most
often can be worse for the victim. Partly because the bullies
spend so much energy on the bullying, but also because the
bullying takes place outside school, in other words when the
victim is at home. Home is usually a sanctuary for most
people. But the bullies take this sanctuary away from the
victims by cyberbullying them.”
Involvement in several types of cyberbullying
The 17.6% who were victims of any type of cyberbullying
consisted of 9.5% who experienced a single type and 8.1%
who experienced more than one type; 11.9% had reported
cyberbullying others, 5.7% by one type, and 6.2% by more
than one type.
Are traditional victims also cyberbullies?
Is cyberbullying for some students a mean of asserting
dominance over others as compensation for being bullied in
the “traditional” sense, as suggested by Ybarra and Mitchell
(2004)? Looking at our measure of whether someone had
been bullied in any way, we subtracted those who had been
cyberbullied, leaving 9.0% who had only been bullied in
traditional ways. Of these, only 1.0% had also cyberbullied
others, whereas 8.1% had not.
© 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 The Scandinavian Psychological Associations.
Cyberbullying 151
Total inside or
Outside school outside school
4.8 4.8
2.4 4.3
8.1 9.0
8.1 8.6
6.7 6.7
3.8 4.3
5.2 8.6
2.9 3.8
16.2 17.6
10.5 11.9
Age, gender, and types of cyberbullying
A MANOVA was carried out with independent variables
of gender (2 factors) and age (3 factors, 12–13, 14 and 15
years); the dependent variables were frequencies of the
four types of being cyberbullied, summing inside school and
outside school. There were no significant age differences, but
one significant difference for gender; girls (mean = 2.35)
were more often victims of email bullying than boys (mean
= 2.09), F(1,204) = 3.93, p < 0.05. Age by gender interactions
were not significant.
An equivalent MANOVA was carried out for cyberbully-
ing others. No significant age differences were found. For
gender, boys were found to be slightly more frequently
bullies compared to girls in all categories of cyberbullying,
only significant for text message bullying, F(1,204) = 5.01,
p < 0.05 (boys mean = 2.15, girls mean = 2.01).
Who does the cyberbullying?
Summing over the various types of cyberbullying, 36.2% of
victims reported most often being bullied by one boy, and
36.2% did not know the gender of who bullied them; only
12.1% were bullied by one girl, and 5.2% each by several
girls, several boys, or both boys and girls. Regarding year
group of the bully or bullies, 32.8% of victims did not know,
27.6% said in the same class, 12.1% in a different class but
same year group, 12.1% in different grades, 10.3% not in my
school; and 2.2% in a higher grade (2.9% missing data).
One pupil commented on the anonymity issue: “It is an
easy way to get to someone anonymously, I believe. It is
probably going to become more and more common”.
Perceived impact of cyberbullying compared to
traditional bullying
We calculated an impact factor to display the severity of
each subcategory of cyberbullying in comparison to traditional
bullying (−1 = less effect, 0 = same effect and +1 = more effect,
divided by total number of respondents excluding “don’t
152 R. Slonje and P. K. Smith
know’s”). If an impact factor is positive, that category is
perceived as having more of an effect compared to traditional
bullying; if negative, then less of an effect. For example, for text
message bullying, the impact factor was (37 – 76)/(208 – 25)
= −0.21. Most pupils thought that text message and email
bullying (impact factor −0.34) had less impact than traditional
bullying. Most saw phone call bullying as comparable in
impact to traditional bullying (impact factor = −0.01). However,
a high impact factor was given to picture/video clip bullying
(impact factor = 0.53).
Pupil opinions were divided. One commented: “This kind
of bullying is quite inoffensive compared to traditional
bullying. Concentrate on getting rid of that”; and another:
“A quite new form of bullying which has to be noticed. I
think it hurts as much as ‘ordinary’ bullying but maybe it is
not experienced as serious by the one who bullies”. A third
stated: “I believe that cyberbullying hurts the person more
psychologically, I don’t mean that ordinary bullying does
not do it but I think that the effect becomes more psycho-
logical. You become more frightened if you e.g. get a sms
[text message] that says: ‘I will kill you’ ”.
We also wanted to investigate whether victims compared
to non-victims perceived the impact differently. The trend
was that victims perceived cyberbullying as having more of
a negative impact than did non-victims. However, sample
sizes of victims in each sub-category of cyberbullying were
small, so statistical analyses were not performed.
Seeking help
Summing over the various types of cyberbullying, 50% of
victims reported not telling anyone, 35.7% told a friend,
8.9% told a parent/guardian and 5.4% someone else; telling
a teacher was never reported.
Several pupil comments were that often no one knows
about the cyberbullying except for the victim: “I think it is
good you take this up, since I believe cyberbullying is
equally serious as real-life bullying, but through internet
there are few who get involved in caring or know anything
about”; “Have never thought much about that there is cyber-
bullying going on. But of course, it is not seen as easily”; “I
think it is very hard to notice”; “For those who get bullied
that way it can’t be much fun. Because no one else is prob-
ably going to find out about it, then it is harder to get help”.
The chance of adults noticing cyberbullying
Do pupils think that different types of cyberbullying have
less, the same or more chance of being noticed by an adult?
An awareness factor was calculated for each subcategory of
cyberbullying in comparison to traditional bullying, in a
corresponding way to the impact factor (−1 = less awareness,
0 = same awareness and +1 = more awareness, divided by
total number of respondents excluding “don’t know’s”). For
picture/video clip bullying (awareness factor = −0.03) most
© 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 The Scandinavian Psychological Associations.
Scand J Psychol 49 (2008)
pupils thought this was as likely to be noticed by adults as
traditional bullying. However, the three other types were
seen as less likely to be noticed by adults: Text message
bullying (awareness factor = −0.55), Email bullying (−0.53),
and Phone call bullying (−0.53). As one pupil commented:
“Parents obviously don’t know what kind of sms [text message]
you get or email”.
DISCUSSION
Victimization inside school (from any kind of bullying) was
not infrequent in the overall sample: 10.0% at least once or
twice in the last couple of months, and 3.6% more often.
Being a victim of cyberbullying in school was obviously less,
5.3% at least once or twice, 2.8% more often; but is never-
theless an appreciable fraction of overall school bullying.
The most common type was email victimization, but all four
types were experienced by a number of pupils.
One reason for such a large proportion experiencing
cyberbullying compared to all types of bullying may be the
long history of work on traditional bullying issues in Swedish
schools, with lower prevalence rates as one possible outcome.
However, work on cyberbullying is virtually non-existent and
thus may show relatively similar incidence to that found in other
countries (e.g. Campbell, 2005; Li, 2006; Smith et al., 2006).
However, as noted by Smith et al. (2006) in the UK, being
cyberbullied is just as much if not more a phenomenon of
outside school. Prevalence rates were higher outside school
for most types of cyberbullying, whether as victim or bully
(see Table 1). It may well be others from school who do the
cyberbullying; we found that when victims knew the identity
of a cyberbully, 57% were in the same school and only 10%
outside school (with 33% unknown). The restrictions that
many schools put on mobile phone and computer use within
school grounds are probably effective in reducing the incidence
of cyberbullying within school; but with cyberbullying, the
victim is no longer safe in their own home from nasty or
threatening text messages or emails.
The cyberbullying rates were much lower in students at
sixth-form college; as were victimization rates generally. Only
3.3% (5 pupils out of 150) were cybervictims of any kind;
although there were 8% (12) cyberbullies. By this stage in
education, only students interested in educational achieve-
ment are likely to be attending, so they are a select sample;
this, combined with the general age decline in reported victim
rates (Smith et al., 1999), suggests that the problem is much
more acute during the period of compulsory schooling, even
for cyberbullying that escapes the school boundaries.
Despite significant differences between lower secondary
and sixth-form college students, we did not find significant
age differences within the 12- to 15-year-old age period, for
any types of cybervictimization or cyberbullying. This is in
line with Smith et al. (2006) in the UK. Ybarra and Mitchell
(2004) reported more internet aggressors among 15 to 17-
year-olds than 10 to 14-year-olds, but we found no significant
Scand J Psychol 49 (2008)
age difference in email bullying (means 12–13 = 2.28, 14 = 2.12,
15 = 2.19; F(1,204) = 0.70, p = 0.496). Future research should
investigate prevalence of cyberbullying amongst even younger
ages, especially as mobile phone use seems to be quite high
even by 8 years.
We found few significant gender differences, more in line
with Li (2006) in Canada than with Smith et al. (2006) in
the UK. However, we found girls more likely to be email
victims (compared to them being text message and phone
call victims, in Smith et al., 2006); and a trend for boys to
be more involved in cyberbullying, significant for text
message bullying. When victims reported on who had cyber-
bullied them, if this was known (often it was not), boys were
much more often referred to than girls.
What about the impact of cyberbullying on the victim? As
indicated by the pupil quotes, there are differing views on
this, although some aspects of cyberbullying may heighten
its negative impact. In agreement with Smith et al. (2006),
we found that picture/video clip bullying had a high impact
factor. This kind of cyberbullying is the most obviously
public of the four that we examined, and can actually show
the victim in some embarrassing or hurtful situation. The
two most common reasons given by pupils were the large
audience size (if the picture/clip was on the internet) and the
concreteness effect, i.e. actually seeing the picture/clip. The
fear of not knowing who had seen the picture/clip was also
given as a reason by some participants.
Phone call bullying was rated next in impact; this was
perceived as more personal (the bully knew your mobile
number) and sometimes more negative due to the bully
actually taking his/her time to find out a number; thus it was
not perceived as something spontaneous, rather very planned
and intentional. These more private forms of nasty messages
or threats may superficially seem no worse than direct threats
and insults. It would be desirable for future research to
investigate larger sample sizes in order to explore whether
there is a difference in perception of impact between victims
and non-victims. Media interest in cyberbullying may also
affect the awareness of the impact cyberbullying may have.
Pupils rated email and text message bullying as less harmful
than traditional bullying. A common reason given was that
email bullying was not seen as personal, since most often the
victims did not know who the bully was, and hence thought
that the email could have been meant for anyone and not
specifically for them. In addition, possibly emails are less
used and less salient for this adolescent age group, than text
messaging and mobile phone calls.
Since most victims turn to their friends for support or do
not tell anyone of cyberbullying (current study; NCH, 2005;
Smith et al., 2006) they may never receive adequate support;
their friend might not perceive it as such a serious issue,
and adults may lack awareness of cyberbullying. We
calculated perceived adult awareness ratings for each type of
cyberbullying, from the perspective of pupils generally; and
in addition pupils could write in reasons for their choices.
© 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 The Scandinavian Psychological Associations.
Cyberbullying 153
There was general pupil consensus that adults are less aware
of text, email and phone call bullying, than of traditional
bullying. Reasons given by pupils usually related to these
types of bullying occurring without any audience. However,
a minority of pupils argued the opposite: that there was a
greater chance for adults to notice these kinds of cyber-
bullying, because of available proof (one could save the text
message or email). It was felt that adults would be just as
aware of picture/video clip bullying. This is a much more
public type of bullying, more widely disseminated (hence its
high impact factor), but therefore also more visible to adults.
The issue of adult awareness is crucial when it comes to
effective action by schools against cyberbullying. Teachers
as well as parents need to be aware of the various kinds of
cyberbullying, and of what actions can be taken (there are
various sources of advice now becoming available; see for
example Willard (2006); and many websites). The issue is
also important since pupil’s perception may influence their
behaviour. If students perceive adults to be unaware of
cyberbullying they may not tend to go to them in order to
receive support, and a worrying feature of our findings was
that none of the cybervictims said they had told a teacher
(and very few had told parents).
In conclusion, our findings contribute to a deeper under-
standing of the nature of cyberbullying. It is important to
distinguish different types of cyberbullying; we found varia-
tions in gender differences, and perceived impact factor, and
perceived adult awareness, across the four types we investig-
ated. These deserve continuing study. It will be important
to state the year in which studies are carried out, since the
penetration of new technologies to younger age groups, and
the development of new potentials such as instant messag-
ing, Bluetooth, etc., are evolving rapidly and changing the
nature of the cyberbullying phenomenon. This presents new
challenges to researchers and practitioners.
Some weaknesses of the study should be noted. First, the
distinction between cyberbullying “inside school” and “outside
school”, which was just asked in that way in the questionnaire,
merits more definition and investigation. For example, a text
message might be received inside school, but only read
outside school. Although we supposed that “inside school”
was taken as referring to when the message was received or
the picture/video clip was made, we cannot be sure of this.
Second, we did not have information on the student’s use
of mobile phones and the internet. We know that use of
these is very high from 11 years up (e.g. Mobile Life Youth
Report, 2006); but future research should include a measure
of this for those participating.
Our study does also bring forward two issues of concern
to researchers. One relates to the definition of cyberbullying.
There is common agreement that bullying includes a repetitive
behavior (Olweus, 1999); even though disagreements exist
about what “repeatedly” actually includes, and over how long
a period of time the bullying has to occur. Since cyberbullying
is a form of bullying, this notion should hence also include
154 R. Slonje and P. K. Smith
repetitive behavior in its definition. However, what is actually
the repetitive behavior that defines cyberbullying? This ques-
tion arises most acutely for photo/video clip bullying: taking
a picture or video clip with a mobile phone of someone in
order to use it in an abusive manner, by sending it to others
or uploading it onto a webpage on the internet. We found
that 8.6% of lower secondary school participants reported
that they had at some point been victims of photo/video
clip-bullying in the last couple of months. Even though most
stated that it only happened on one occasion, this may fit
into the notion of repetition. The behavior of taking the
picture or clip may have occurred merely once; yet if the
bullying child sends that picture to more than one other
person, or if the person receiving the image forwards it to
anyone else, it could be argued that this falls under the
category of repetition. If the picture or clip is uploaded onto
a webpage, every hit on that specific page could count as a
repetition. Figures based on the victim’s awareness of
frequency may thus be less reliable than for traditional
bullying; and the use of repetition as a criterion for more
serious bullying (as often used traditionally, e.g. Solberg &
Olweus, 2003) may be less reliable for cyberbullying.
The second aspect concerns the idea of proof, or of evidence
which a victim can use in seeking help from others, especially
teachers or parents. In response to the open-ended question
about why adults might be more or less aware of cyberbully-
ing, some pupils cited this issue in an apparently positive way
– that an email or text message could be saved and shown
to an adult. Some of the reasons given by the pupils could
be interpreted as that the adult has proof to proceed with
appropriate actions to address the bullying, whilst others
may be understood as that it is the victim that has the proof
to proceed with the action. Do adolescents have the percep-
tion of not being believed by adults if they have no proof to
show, or are adults perceived as unsuccessful in giving
support, if proof is lacking? Either way, this aspect should
be investigated further, especially given that very few cyber-
victims had actually told an adult about their suffering, and
none of our sample said they had told a teacher.
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Received 11 September 2006, accepted 22 May 2007