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Cyberbullying is a growing problem

Even popular social media platform providors are not meeting their responsibilities and have to get engaged for stronger protection of bullying victims, according to the results of the current "ARAG Digital Risks Survey," which has just been published. In the first cross-border trend study of its kind, scientists from Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain and the United States address the effects of cyberharassment and cyberbullying.

“The finding is appalling and should be a wake up call to us all,” says Dr. Catarina Katzer, head of the Institute for Cyberpsychology and Media Ethic in Cologne and one of the study’s authors. She is Germany’s leading expert in cyberbullying. “Cyberbullying is threatening to become the time bomb of the Internet,” according to Catarina Katzer, “because it isn’t just children and young people who are helpless against this phenomenon; rather, adults too are more and more often falling victim to cyberbullying.”

Thus cyberbullying and cyberviolence is transforming from a youth culture phenomenon into a societal problem for every age group. Researchers questioned in the "ARAG Digital Risks Survey" emphatically pointed to the rise in online privacy right infringement.

Smartphones are the tool of choice for cyberbullying in all of the countries included in the survey, which leads to a significant increase of bullying attacks. Cyberbullying is thus ever more mobile. Constant availability considerably lowers the threshold for harassment; photos and videos for download increase the damage and psychological pressure. The researchers thus refer to smartphones as “smart weapons.”