Is This Cyberbullying, and What Do I Do First?

Cyberbullying is bullying on digital devices. StopBullying.gov defines it as bullying that takes place over phones, computers, and tablets, including through SMS and text, apps, social media, forums, gaming, and other places where people can view, participate in, or share content. It includes sending, posting, or sharing negative, harmful, false, or mean content about someone else, and sharing personal or private information that causes embarrassment or humiliation.

That definition sits on top of the site's general bullying definition. Bullying is unwanted, aggressive behaviour among school-aged children that involves a real or perceived power imbalance, and that is repeated or has the potential to be repeated. The power can be physical strength, access to embarrassing information, or popularity. The behaviour can be verbal, social, or physical in person; online it often looks like posts, messages, shared images, fake accounts, or deliberate exclusion from group chats and games.

What the federal numbers actually measure

Two national surveys get cited side by side. They are not interchangeable.

The 2022 School Crime Supplement to the National Crime Victimization Survey, published by the National Center for Education Statistics as NCES 2024-109, asked students ages 12–18 in grades 6–12 about bullying during school. Overall, 19.2 percent reported being bullied. Among those who were bullied, 21.6 percent said it happened online or by text. That share was 27.7 percent for girls and 14.1 percent for boys in the bullied group. The survey's "during school" window includes the school building, school property, the bus, travel to and from school, and phone, internet, or social media use during the 2021–22 school year.

The 2023 Youth Risk Behavior Survey asked a different population a different question. Among high school students nationwide, 16 percent were electronically bullied in the past year, including through texting, Instagram, Facebook, or other social media. Female students were more likely than male students to report it. LGBTQ+ students were more likely than cisgender and heterosexual students to report it. The 10-year trend for electronic bullying was largely flat for female students; male students' rate rose from 2013 to 2023 but did not change from 2021 to 2023.

If a page gives you one tidy percentage for "teen cyberbullying," ask which survey, which age range, and whether the base is all students or only students already counted as bullied.

Why it is easy to miss from the sofa

StopBullying.gov names three features that make cyberbullying harder to catch than hallway bullying. It can be persistent, because devices communicate around the clock. It can be permanent, because electronic content often stays public unless it is reported and removed. And it is hard to notice, because teachers and parents may never overhear it.

The parent digital-awareness guide lists tactics that look different from a shove in a corridor: creating or sharing hurtful or embarrassing content, threatening someone or telling them to harm themselves, creating fake profiles to solicit personal information, and posting mean or hateful names, comments, or content. None of those requires the adults in the house to be in the room.

What to do first

The reporting page puts three steps at the top, in this order:

1. Do not respond to the messages, and do not forward them.
2. Keep evidence. Record dates, times, and descriptions. Save and print screenshots, emails, and texts.
3. Block the person who is cyberbullying.

Report to the platform next. StopBullying.gov notes that cyberbullying often violates terms of service, and it links reporting routes for major apps and games. Report to the school when the behaviour affects school life. The page states that cyberbullying can create a disruptive environment at school and is often related to in-person bullying, that many states require schools to address cyberbullying in anti-bullying policy, and that some state laws cover off-campus behaviour that creates a hostile school environment.

Involve law enforcement when the conduct matches the crimes listed on that page: threats of violence; child pornography or sending sexually explicit messages or photos; taking a photo or video of someone in a place where they would expect privacy; stalking and hate crimes. Some states treat other forms of cyberbullying as criminal. That list is federal guidance about when to call police, not a diagnosis of your teenager's friendships.

What the law actually says, and what it does not

There is no federal law that specifically applies to bullying. StopBullying.gov states that plainly on its laws page. All states have laws requiring schools to respond to bullying, and many now include cyberbullying or mention cyberbullying offences. When bullying is based on race or ethnicity, color, national origin, sex, disability, or religion, it can overlap with harassment that schools are legally obligated to address under federal civil-rights rules. That overlap is a different path from a general bullying complaint, and the site points parents to the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights and the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division for those cases.

A worked example, for illustration only: Mira's mother found screenshots of a group chat that had been forwarding a private photo of Mira with captions. She did not reply in the chat. She saved the images with timestamps, blocked the accounts she could identify, used the platform report links, and emailed the assistant principal the next morning with the files attached and a short description of what was happening at school. What the district decided is not something this page can tell you. What the sequence did was match the federal reporting order instead of starting with a confrontation that left no dated record.

What this page cannot settle

Whether your district's policy covers the exact app, the exact hour, or the exact off-campus post. Whether a particular message is a crime in your state. Whether the behaviour will stop once it is reported. Those answers are local. What the federal sources give you is a definition, two survey baselines that should not be mashed together, and a first-aid order that does not require you to invent a plan at midnight.