Wellesley Centers for Women 

Wellesley Centers for Women

Wellesley Centers for Women

Commentary with Linda Charmaraman, Ph.D.

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• Linda Charmaraman

Research & Action Report, Spring/Summer 2015

By Linda Charmaraman, Ph.D.

Virtual Harassment & Bullying in the College Years

Given the immense public attention on cyber bullying amongst teens and that social media is intricately tied to adolescent daily behavior, it’s not surprising that the vast majority of studies on cyber bullying are conducted on youth under 18. A recent review¹ found that the highest incidence of cyber bullying in youth occurs during seventh and eighth grades—incidence that increases from elementary school, but decreases into the high school years. One might predict that since cyber bullying wanes in high school, that in college it would continue to wane. It was only until Pew’s recent study on online harassment in 2014—which demonstrated that the cyber harassment rate in young adults aged 18-24 can reach rates as high as 70 percent—that we can now see that young adulthood deserves more attention, academic inquiry, and public scrutiny.