Abstract
Cyberbullying is a recent phenomenon, internationally studied over very recent years, that implies intentional and repeated aggressive attacks through the use of new communicative technologies by pre-adolescents and adolescents. This new phenomenon is described, first highlighting the risk factors of these new technologies, such as desensibilization, disinhibition, more opportunities to attack and moral disengagement. Second, different characteristics of cyberbullying will be discussed: an incidence of around 8-10%, the use of more than one electronic media in order to carry out the aggressions, an increase of the phenomenon from pre-adolescence to adolescence, an involvement of both genders, a very high percentage of aggressors’ anonymity, a victims’ strong difficulty to talk about it, a relationship between the aggressive acts and some psycho-social deviancy or at risk characteristics. A comparison between cyberbullying and traditional bullying shows many characteristics in common, such as the importance of groups, the role of bystanders, the relation to a negative school climate, and the victims’ silence; but on the other hand some salient differences, such as an anonymous strategy of aggression, the aggressor’s exhibitionism, and the prevalence of aggressive acts out of school time. We will discuss some recent data arising from an international research project financed by EU in the Daphne action, which involved Italy, Spain, UK, Finland and Bosnia in the task of describing the occurrence of bullying through new technologies among a large sample (N= 6700) of European adolescents.