Mediaboss Marketing

Published on: 26th Feb 2013

While schoolyard bullying continues to be a problem for many Canadian teens, it appears that bullies are adapting their tactics through 21st century methods. Many of today's bullies are taking their hostilities out online through social networking sites, sometimes using mobile technology.

According to findings in a recent issue of the Ipsos Interactive Reid Report, one-in-five (20%) online teens say they have witnessed someone they know being bullied on social networking sites. Close to one-in-ten (8%) say they themselves have been victims of online bullying on social networking sites.

The scope of the problem increases when online teens are asked if they have seen or been victims of mean or inappropriate comments on social networking sites. Over one-third (35%) of Canadian teens with a profile on a social networking site say they have seen postings of mean or inappropriate comments about someone they know, and one-in-seven (14%) say they have seen these types of comments about themselves on social networks.

These issues, coupled with the increasing use by Canadian teens of mobile devices with access to social networking sites, raises some alarms that bullying runs the potential of becoming a mobile problem.

"In the past year we've seen ownership of smartphones among teens increase significantly, which certainly gives teens greater unsupervised access to social networking sites than ever before," says Dave Pierzchala, Senior Vice President and Managing Director with Ipsos Reid in Vancouver. "This just emphasizes how important awareness and education about bullying and how to stop it are to our youth."

The Ipsos study showed that among online Canadian teens, ownership of smartphones is up 18 percentage points (43%) since 2012. Likewise, ownership of MP3 players, such as the web-enabled Apple iPod Touch, has increased ten percentage points with 61% of online Canadian teens owning one.

"These findings show that bullying has moved from face-to-face, to cyber-bullying, to mobile-bullying," adds Pierzchala. "Unfortunately, bullies have gained further access to our children and society must play a role in raising the awareness of mobile-bullying."

Tags: [Canada]

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Bullies Taking to Social Networking As Teens Become More Mobile