We recently collected another round of data from middle and high school students in across the United States. This sample includes about 3,500 English or Spanish speaking 13- to 17-year-olds. We used age, race, gender, and region quotas to match U.S. Census demographics as closely as possible. This is the fifth national survey we’ve conducted over the past decade, and results show a troubling rise in cyberbullying behaviors over that time.
New Cyberbullying Data Shows Troubling Trend
As in all of our surveys, we defined cyberbullying for respondents as “when someone repeatedly threatens, harasses, mistreats, or makes fun of another person (on purpose to hurt them) online or while using cell phones or other electronic devices.” In this latest study, 32.7% of students said they had experienced cyberbullying within the 30 days prior to completing the survey. This compares to 26.5% in 2023, 23.2% in 2021, 17.2% in 2019, and 16.7% in 2016. In 2016, 12.4% of students told us that they had been cyberbullied in a way that “really affected my ability to learn and feel safe at school.” In 2025, that number nearly doubled to 23.3%.
In this latest study, 32.7% of students said they had experienced cyberbullying within the 30 days prior to completing the survey.
In addition to the single question about whether they had been cyberbullied, we also asked about 21 unique forms of online aggression. The most commonly reported types included:
• Someone intentionally excluded me from a group text or chat (32.5%)• Someone posted mean or hurtful comments about me online (31.6%)• Someone embarrassed or humiliated me online (31.3%)• Someone spread rumors about me online (29.2%)
The percentage of students who experienced bullying at school also rose since our previous two surveys (from 22.6% in 2021, to 25% in 2023, to 35.5% in 2025). The rate of school bullying is still below pre-COVID levels, but for the first time since the COVID pandemic, more students experienced bullying at school than online.
The percentage of students who reported that they had cyberbullied others in the last 30 days increased significantly from our previous studies. From 2016-2021 between 5% and 7% of students reported engaging in cyberbullying. In 2025, that number jumped to 16.1% (we were unable to ask cyberbullying offending questions in the 2023 survey). The most commonly reported forms of online mistreatment that students said they had done included:
• I intentionally excluded someone from a group text or chat (19.8%)• I posted mean or hurtful comments about someone online (17%)• I embarrassed or humiliated someone online (17%)• I posted mean names or comments online about someone’s physical appearance (15.7%)
Gender Differences in Cyberbullying
We identified some notable differences when disaggregating the 2025 data by gender. In most of our previous studies, we found that girls were as likely, if not more likely, to experience cyberbullying. In the 2025 study, boys were clearly more involved (36.6% of boys vs. 28.6% of girls had been cyberbullied recently). The rate for girls is remarkably similar to what we found in 2023 (28.56% compared to 28.63%) while the rate for boys rose sharply from 24.2% to 36.6%.
When we broke the data down even further—by gender and age—we noticed that in previous years boys had experienced cyberbullying fairly consistently at different ages. In 2025, however, there was a clear trend that experience with cyberbullying decreased as boys aged (from 44.8% among 13-year-olds to 30.1% among 17-year-olds). This pattern was not as present among girls.
These findings raise several questions: Are younger boys being targeted more often or are older boys less likely to perceive these behaviors as cyberbullying? Are girls just so accustomed to online harms that they don’t consider or report them as bullying anymore? More research is needed to replicate these findings to better understand why boys’ rates would change so much while girls’ rates remained unchanged.
Improvements in Reporting Cyberbullying
One encouraging finding is that a greater proportion of youth who experienced cyberbullying reported those experiences to adults in 2025. In 2016, only about 52% of targets reported their experience with cyberbullying to a parent and 24% reported it to someone at school (a teacher, principal, or counselor). In 2025, 66% reported to a parent and 31% reported to an educator. In many of our earlier studies (2004-2015), reporting numbers were much lower (averaging 25% for parents and 10% for educators). So, it seems students who are cyberbullied are more willing to disclose their experience to adults today than in the past, which is a good thing. On a side note, boys were significantly less likely than girls to report their experience with cyberbullying to an adult, though that has been the case across all of our previous studies.
Key Takeaways
Despite efforts by schools, parents, and policymakers, cyberbullying continues to impact a substantial portion of middle and high school students, particularly boys. Nearly two-thirds of boys have been cyberbullied at some point in their lifetimes, and over one-third has have had it happen in the last 30 days. Nearly half (44%) of the boys who had been cyberbullied said it really affected their ability to learn and feel safe at school (only 31% of girls said the same). Clearly this is something we cannot ignore.
Schools need to proactively work to address cyberbullying. Thankfully, research is beginning to identify school-based programs that work to curtail cyberbullying (see: this and this). There are programs that specifically target cyberbullying (as opposed to only school bullying), and schools should consider incorporating them into their prevention programming. Schools also need to ensure their bullying policy explicitly addresses cyberbullying. Overall, schools need to discuss cyberbullying regularly so students know that it will not be tolerated and so they feel safe coming forward to report. Students need to know that the school will do everything they can to stop the mistreatment and protect the student.
Parents also play a crucial role. They need to regularly talk with their children about their online experiences, to open the line of communication should something bad happen. Children are often afraid to consult with their parents when confronting online issues, for fear that their tech privileges will be taken away. Parents should address this fear directly by reassuring their children that they will work together to resolve problems in a way that supports safe and positive use of technology. Youth should not have to face their online problems alone. Parents, educators, and others who care about kids need to step up to help.
28% of boys said they had been cyberbullied in a way that really affected their ability to learn and feel safe at school.
Finally, this latest research suggests that all of these efforts need to more directly focus on boys. They are experiencing cyberbullying more often, and are reporting it to adults less often. The “boys will be boys” and “they just need to toughen up” mentalities needs to be reconsidered. Notably, when asked if they had been cyberbullied in a way that really affected their ability to learn and feel safe at school, 28% of boys said they had (compared to 18.7% of girls). Some boys are really struggling with these problems, and we need to step up and help.
We will continue to share additional insights from this latest study in the coming weeks. Stay tuned.
Image: Lesli Whitecotton (unsplash)
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