In-person bullying causes more harm than digital alone

While “cyberbullying” has gained a lot of media attention in recent years, a new study indicates that being bullied through the digital world doesn’t cause as much emotional harm as being bullied in person.

Additionally, the worst kind of harassment – and one that the researchers said should be a priority for those trying to identify the most serious and harmful experiences – involved a mix of both in-person and digital interactions, according to “The Role of Technology in Peer Harassment: Does It Amplify Harm for Youth,” published in the American Psychological Association’s journal, Psychology of Violence.

“We don’t know exactly why these mixed incidents are so much more upsetting for kids, but it looks like from the data that these incidents are ones where there is a lot of animosity between the victim and perpetrator, and as a result the harassment might be more personal or meaningful,” said the study’s lead researcher, Kimberly J. Mitchell, Ph.D., research associate professor at the University of New Hampshire’s Crimes Against Children Research Center.

In the mixed incidents, perpetrators tended to be more socially connected to victims; there was more of a tendency for mutual harassment between the victim and perpetrator; victims felt these kinds of incidents were harder to stop; and the harassment was more intense, personal and complex, Mitchell said.

The study involved telephone interviews with a national sample of 791 youth, ages 10-20. Thirty-four percent of youth reported 311 harassment incidents in the past year – 54 percent were in-person only, 15 percent involved only technology and 31 percent involved a mix of technology and in-person. The study found that compared with in-person incidents, technology-only incidents were less likely to involve multiple episodes and power imbalances.

“Harassment that only occurs online is the least common, it’s also the least distressing,” Mitchell said. Technology-only harassment incidents tended to be shorter, and involve people the youth didn’t know as well. “We think this interpersonal element is at the core of some of the distress we’re seeing, particularly in the mixed harassment episodes,” Mitchell said.

Online harassment can be more visible and permanent, but on the other hand, there is the possibility that technology may provide a distance that lessens the impact, compared to face-to-face verbal or physical aggression, Mitchell said.

Mitchell said the data suggests that focusing on technology as a main priority could distract clinicians, educators, and policy-makers from the types of peer victimization and bullying that are actually most harmful to youth.

“It is good to keep in mind that a lot of harassment is not that upsetting to youth, but some of it is highly upsetting,” she said. For adults trying to identify and help with those really upsetting kinds of bullying, it may be helpful to look for incidents that are happening in a lot of places (online and in-person), and for things that start from jealousy or hurt feelings and escalate or involve social groups, she said.

“We need to remember that youth often do not make the ‘online’ or ‘offline’ distinction that we do as adults. For them they may not even make a conscious distinction. Technology is so intertwined in their lives. How we talk to them about technology and ask questions about technology needs to take this into account,” she said.

Instead of being distracted by things like new technology, adults should look at what “experiences” are upsetting the child. Among the most upsetting to youth in the study were episodes where harassment lasts a while, where there is fighting and injury, where the bully has more power in some way or when there are sexual comments or comments about race, religion or sexual orientation.

This is all not to say that cyberbullying and harassment incidents that only occur online can’t be very distressing, Mitchell said. “We know that does happen – just not as often as people tend to think,” she said. “Technology is not inherently harmful for youth, even when it comes to harassment and bullying. But it does add a complex element in some situations as seen by the mixed incidents we identified in this study.”