[00:00:00] The term cyberbullying means repeatedly harassing, mistreating, or making fun of others while using electronic devices. Bias based cyberbullying means repeatedly hurting or harassing someone online because of their identity, like their race, gender, ethnic group, or religion. How widespread is the cyberbullying among adolescents? Researchers asked a national sample of over 1600 adolescents ages twelve to 15 years old. Various questions about cyberbullying and bias based cyberbullying offending based on race or religion in the past 30 days were also assessed on their cognitive empathy, that is, their being able to place themselves in other people's shoes to understand their feelings.
[00:00:40] Approximately 80% of adolescents report being cyberbullied in the last 30 days, 8% cyberbullied others, of which 5% cyberbullied others. Due to race, male youth are significantly more likely than female youth to participate in general cyberbullying and bias based cyberbullying. However, older youth, especially 14 year olds, are more likely to cyberbully and bias based cyberbully. Adolescents with more cognitive empathy are less likely to cyberbully others and specifically, less likely to bias cyberbully based on others, race, or religion. Parents, teachers, and schools let's teach cognitive empathy to adolescents and reduce cyberbullying.
