* A 2010 study by TRUSTe found that 68 percent of teens have accepted friend requests from strangers, and 8 percent have accepted every friend request they've received. This means their "friends" may not be people they can trust. (Goodwill Community Foundation, 2017)
* In April 2009, nearly four out of every five (79%) children aged 5-14 years (2.2 million children) used the Internet, compared to 65% in April 2006 (1.7 million children). Home was reported as the most common site for Internet use in 2009 (92% of all children accessing the Internet) followed by school (86%) (ABS, 2009a). Older children(aged 12-14 years) had the highest proportion of Internet usage in April 2009 (96%). Internet usage was 60% for children aged 5-8 years. (ABS, 2010)
* Children and teenagers aged between 7 and 17 have experienced bullying on a weekly basis with primary aged children being more frequent in reporting this behaviour (Rigby, 1997 as cited in Australian Institute of Family Studies, 2018).
* In April 2009, few children who accessed the Internet in the previous 12 months were reported to have had some kind of personal safety or security problem on the Internet (3% or 72,000). This included problems such as accessing inappropriate material, experiencing bullying or threatening behaviour, or strangers asking for or gaining access to the child's personal information. Supervising or monitoring children's use of the Internet was the most common action taken by parents or guardians for personal safety or security of children using the Internet at home (89%), followed by educating children about safe and appropriate use of the Internet (83%), placing the computer in a public area of the house (77%) and installing an Internet content filter (47%) (ABS 2009a).
* At least 1 million children have been bullied on Facebook in the last year.
85% of 19 year old men say that they have experienced at least one instance of online bullying or trolling in their lifetime.
* The percentage of 18 year old girls who say they’ve been bullied or trolled: 75%.
* 67% of teens in all age demographics say that they have either been bullied or know someone who has.
* Price and Dalgleish’s study of 548 Australians found that cyber bullying occurred mostly in the period of transition from primary to secondary school. Their participants experienced cyber bullying at multiple ages when growing up, more prominently occurring between the ages of 10 to 16 years (Hanewald, 2012, p. 809).
Cyber Bullying on Social Media
* 49% of Facebook bullying victims will also experience at least one episode of bullying off-line as well.
* Just 37% of teens who say that someone has been a bully to them online have actually reported the incident to Facebook.
* Less than 1% of teens say that their first response to online bullying would be to tell a teach. Just 17% say that they would tell their parents.
* 34% of Facebook bullying or trolling incidents last for more than 30 days.
1 in 5 kids online say that they are experiencing “extreme” cyber bullying on a daily basis.
* 1 in 10 Australian children have experienced cyber bullying with 84 percent also experiencing bullying offline (No Bullying, 2018).
* 1 in 6 parents know their child has been bullied via a social networking site.
Around one-fifth of youngsters are picked on by bullies on Twitter.
The most frequently victimised were 19-year-old males.
* 7% of adults say that the bullying has occurred in the last year – that’s 9.8 million people.
* 72% of American adults say that they are aware that adult bullying exists.
* 37% of the victims of adult bullies are best described as being compassionate and kind individuals.
* 92% of the users believe that online spaces make it easy for people to criticise one another (Duggan, 2014).
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