Impacts of Cyberbullying, Building Social and Emotional Resilience in Schools

Book excerpt: This volume explores cyberbullying and its impact on young people in schools in detail. It investigates social and emotional resilience and wellbeing in relation to developing protective factors against the impacts of cyberbullying and contains a range of perspectives to deal positively with cyberbullying as well as a summary of international research. Cyberbullying occurs when any means of technology is used to repeatedly and deliberately engage in bullying behaviours with the intent to cause harm to others. Although anyone can be affected, young people who are also being bullied offline are more likely to be the target of cyberbullying. Forms of cyberbullying include: • abusive texts and emails • posting messages or images • imitating and excluding others online • inappropriate image tagging. Cyberbullying differs from face-to-face bullying. • a sense of anonymity for those who bully • can occur 24/7 and is invasive • can have a large audience • difficult to delete comments and images.