At the Cyberbullying Research Center we have been collecting data from youth since 2002. We have surveyed approximately 35,000 students from middle and high schools from across the United States in fourteen unique projects. The following two charts show the percent of respondents who have experienced cyberbullying at some point in their lifetime or in the most recent 30 days across our thirteen most recent studies. Our earliest studies (from before 2007) are excluded from this because they were online convenience samples and therefore cannot be easily compared to the other studies. The thirteen most recent cyberbullying studies have all been random samples of known populations which allows for improved reliability, validity, and generalizability. Please see our Research in Review addendum for more details about each of the samples.
As illustrated in the chart above, the rates of cyberbullying victimization have been increasing in recent years. On average, about 31% of the students who have been a part of our most recent 13 studies have said they have been the victim of cyberbullying at some point in their lifetime. About 13% said they had been cyberbullied in the most recent 30 days. These averages mask significant increases we have observed over the last decade.
The rates of cyberbullying offending have also varied, but increased recently, among the research studies we have conducted. To note, we did not collect cyberbullying offending data in 2023. On average, about 16% of the students who have been a part of our last 12 studies have admitted that they have cyberbullied others at some point in their lifetime. When it comes to more recent experiences, an average of about 12% of students have been cyberbullied across all of our studies within the 30 days prior to the survey. There does appear to be a trend over the last 5 years or so of this rate increasing steadily. For offending, across all of our studies, 6% of students admit to cyberbullying others.
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