Only two per cent of young people who experience cyberbullying by the age 18 report exclusively being abused online.
New research from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) at King's College London has found that only two per cent of young people who experience cyberbullying by the age 18 report exclusively being abused online.
The research, published in Lancet Child & Adolescent Health, highlights how cyberbullying is rarely experienced in isolation from other forms of victimisation, and that offline experiences of abuse explained the risk for poor mental health in cyberbullied victims. The researchers are calling for policy makers to look beyond online safety when considering how to protect young people.
While cyberbullying in adolescence has previously been associated with poor mental health, it remains unclear whether online abuse contributes to poor mental health in itself, or whether it could be explained by other factors in a young person's life.
2232 British 18-year-olds from the Environmental Risk (E-Risk) Longitudinal Twin Study were interviewed about their experiences of cyberbullying, offline forms of victimisation, and any mental health conditions they were experiencing.
Researchers found that one in five adolescents (20.3 per cent) reported being "moderately" or "severely" cyberbullied between ages 12 and 18 and were more likely to have mental health conditions at age 18 including anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and conduct disorder. They were also more likely to have self-harmed, attempted suicide or reported psychotic experiences compared with those not cyberbullied.
Importantly, researchers found that only anxiety disorder remained independently associated with cyberbullying once genetic factors, family environment, and offline victimisation experiences during adolescence were taken into account.
Researchers also found that the links between cyberbullying and poor mental health did not differ between boys and girls or those with or without a prior history of poor mental health.
"What is clear from our research is that cyberbullying is less common than often assumed and usually occurs alongside other offline harms in young people's lives. While there has been extensive public focus on preventing cyberbullying, these discussions rarely take into account that it is a form of victimisation that is likely one part of a broader context of victimisation experienced by young people."
Louise Arseneault, Professor of Developmental Psychology at King's IoPPN and the study's senior author
Louise Arseneault, Professor of Developmental Psychology at King's IoPPN and the study's senior author said, "Our study provides evidence of an association between cyberbullying and a range of mental health conditions, but only in anxiety do we find evidence supporting a potential direct causal link between the two."
Dr Frédéric Thériault-Couture, a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at King's IoPPN and the study's first author said, "Cyberbullying might be particularly anxiety-provoking for young people as it can be perpetrated anonymously, reach a limitless audience, and persist over time, leaving them feeling little control over what happens.
"When a young person reports being bullied online, it's important to look beyond the screen. Early support for anxiety, together with attention to both online and offline challenges, may offer the most effective help in addressing young people's mental ill health or shaping policies around social media use."
"Cyberbullying is an online phenomenon with very real-world consequences. We can see from this study how the young people impacted by online victimisation face similar problems offline as well, so any strategy that seeks to protect them needs to account for approaches that prevents bullying in both digital and real spaces."
Professor Philip Shaw, Director of the King's Maudsley Partnership for Children and Young People
This research was funded with support provided by the Medical Research Council, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the Jacobs Foundation.
Cybervictimisation and mental health conditions in young people: findings from a nationally representative longitudinal cohort (DOI10.1016/S2352-4642(25)00311-6) (Thériault-Couture, Arseneault et al) was published in Lancet Child & Adolescent Health.
