A discussion on bullying and cyberbullying: An introduction by the editor

Recently this journal published a special issue on cyberbullying, which is ‘‘. . . voluntary and repeated assaults against a person through electronic means’’ (Menesini & Spiel, 2012). Researchers refer to this with terms like cyberbullying (as the editors of the issue prefer), electronic bullying, or internet bullying. Cyberbullying gets a lot of attention these days, as many people and researchers believe that ‘‘. . . cyberbullying represents a threatening experience among young people in different Western countries’’. The special issue offers a wealth of new research data and interpretations: longitudinal data (Kostas, Demetriou, & Hawa, 2012); false memories in relation to traditional and cyberbullying (Vannucci, Nocentini, Mazzoni, & Menesini, 2012); a comparison of cyberbullying and traditional bullying in adolescence (Perren & Gutzwiller-Helfenfinger, 2012); direct and indirect effects on self-control in adolescents of 25 European countries (Vazsonyi, Machackova, Sevcikova, Smahel, & Cerna, 2012); cyber-victimization and popularity in early adolescence (Gradinger, Strohmeier, Schiller, Stefanek, & Spiel, 2012); feelings of remorse in cyberbullies (Slonje, Smith, & Frisen, 2012); the stressfulness of on-line victimization (Staude-Müller, Hansen, & Voss, 2012), and the relation between mental health and cyber-victimization (Dooley, Shaw, & Cross, 2012). From conference discussions, like the 15th European Conference on Developmental Psychology held in Bergen, 23–27 August 2011, it became clear to me that the father of bullying research, Dan Olweus, had reservations as to the specialty of this new form of bullying. I asked him politely to write a paper with his views on cyberbullying. Happily enough he was prepared to do so. This invited paper, with the challenging title ‘‘Cyberbullying: An overrated phenomenon?’’ (Olweus, 2012a, this issue), is so clearly meant as a contribution to the scientific discussion on cyberbullying, that we have called it a ‘‘Discussion paper’’. Olweus explains that claims about cyberbullying in the media are greatly exaggerated; he demonstrates that cyberbullying is a low-prevalence phenomenon, and that it has not made new victims and bullies who are not also involved in some form of traditional bullying. And Olweus recommends that schools should still EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY 2012, 9 (5), 517–519