Depression worse for victims of cyber bullying than their tormentors

Young victims of electronic or cyber bullying - which occurs online or by cell phone - are more likely to suffer from depression than their tormentors are, a new study finds.

Traditional bullying, the kind that occurs in the school building or face-to-face, is different. Victims and bully-victims - those who both bully and are bullied - are more likely to suffer from depression than are those who are bullies, but not victims.

"The type of bullying we're looking at peaks in middle school," said study co-author Ronald Iannotti, Ph.D., researcher at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child and Human Health Development.

Cyber bullying is a relatively new area of study. Lead author Jing Wang, Ph.D., said the greater depression in victims alone compared to others involved in cyber bullying was unexpected.

Jorge Srabstein, M.D., who has no affiliation with the new study, said the findings "really highlight the toxicity of cyber bullying." He is medical director of the Clinic for Health Problems Related to Bullying at Children's National Medical Center.

In traditional bullying, "somebody writes an insult on the bathroom wall and it's confined to the environment of the school," Srabstein said. But with cyber bullying, "in the majority of victimization, there is a wider resonance of abuse, to all corners of the world."

"Individuals can be more isolated when bullying occurs by cell phone or computer," Iannotti said. "The mechanism for cyber bullying is 'I'm making fun of you; I could have made a photo of you that's not even true and it can go to Facebook.' The audience is much greater. That can be devastating - not knowing how many people have seen that text message or photo."

Data from the Health Behavior in School-Aged Children 2005 Survey (students in grades 6-10, N = 7,313) showed that more than half of students either had bullied others or experienced verbal bullying, like name-calling, at least once in the past couple of months and more than half were involved in relational bullying, like isolation from peers. About a fifth had either engaged in or experienced physical bullying, like hitting, and about 14 percent were involved in cyber bullying.

Depression was associated with each of the forms of bullying. Cyber victims reported higher depression than bullies or bully-victims, a result not observed in other forms of bullying. For physical, verbal, and relational bullies, the frequently involved group of victims and bully-victims reported a significantly higher level of depression than the corresponding occasionally involved group. For cyber bullying, differences were found only between the occasional and frequent victims.

Gender was not a factor: boys and girls equally were vulnerable.

What was not clear is which comes first: "We can't be sure whether depressed kids have lower self-esteem and so are more easily bullied or the other way around," Iannotti said.


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