Prevalence, Forms, and Predictors of Cyberbullying Perpetration

With the spread of social interactions from the physical into the “electronic world”, a new form of bullying has emerged among children and young people – cyberbullying. Cyberbullying is bullying through the use of information and communication technologies. Given that the safety of children on the Internet is one of the main preoccupations of parents, educational experts and the media in the digital age, in this paper we investigate the prevalence rate, forms and predictors that encourage children to commit this type of bullying. The research was conducted by surveying 269 students (5th and 8th graders), from two elementary schools in Zagreb. The results show that in the last two months 24,5 % of students found themselves in the role of cyberbullies, that the most common forms of this behaviour are saying ugly things, mocking, and ignoring others on social media platforms, and that its most important predictors are traditional bullying perpetration, affirmative attitude towards violence, cyberbullying victimization, poorer school performance and authoritarian parenting. The authors conclude that the key to preventing cyberbullying lies in the cooperation of educational experts, students, parents and the media, as well as their adaptation to the changing cyber environment.