Cyberbullying definitions and measurements in children and adolescents: Summarizing 20 years of global efforts
Open accessAbstract
Despite numerous instruments existing to assist in the measurement of specific cyberbullying behaviors or cyberbullying in general, it is still unclear their purpose, corresponding scenarios, and their effectiveness. This study, therefore, aims to provide a comprehensive review of academic efforts on cyberbullying definitions, measurements, and their effectiveness in children and adolescents in the past two decades. A systematic review was performed using ASReview, an open source machine learning systematic review system. Three bibliographic citation databases, including Web of Science core collection, PubMed, and EBSCO were adopted for all relevant literature published from January 2001 to August 2021. In total, twenty-five studies, mentioning seventeen cyberbullying measurement scales, met the study collection criteria. The results found that most failed to provide a clear definition of cyberbullying, often providing unclear and inconsistent descriptions for the youth. Similarly, studies found it difficult to clearly reflect the three key elements of bullying, namely: harmfulness, repetitiveness, and the power imbalance between bullies and victims. With regard to cyberbullying types, most presented two or three categories, including victimization, perpetration, and bystanding, while some suggested four types based on the nature of the cyberbullying behavior, including written or verbal, visual or sexual, character impersonation, and exclusion. If characteristics are considered, cyberbullying becomes more specific with multiple categories being proposed, including flaming (or roasting), harassment, denigration, defamation, outing, jokes, online sexual harassment, and cyberstalking. With regard to measurements, many scales have been proposed and frequently refined to capture specific cyberbullying experience of the youth. This study emphasizes the value and importance of providing clear cyberbullying definitions and helps scholars in youth cyberbullying choose appropriate measurement scales.
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A review of adolescent cyberbullying research found that only 2 of 25 studies included all traditional bullying criteria in their definitions.
“However, a review of adolescent cyberbullying research found that only 2 of 25 studies included all of these criteria in their definitions, highlighting the difficulty of consistently and comprehensively applying them across the cyberbullying literature (16).”
From A thematic analysis of adolescents’ perceptions of cyberbullying and cyberaggression: definitional distinctions and educational gaps (2026) · cites this paper as [16]
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Smith, E. J., Rai, R., Scase, M. O., & Wilson, A. D. (2026) · Frontiers in Psychiatry · doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2026.1746672
“However, a review of adolescent cyberbullying research found that only 2 of 25 studies included all of these criteria in their de fi nitions, highlighting the dif fi culty of consistently and comprehensively applying them across the cyberbullying literature (16).”
- Authors
- Zhang, W., Huang, S., Lam, L., Evans, R., & Zhu, C.
- Affiliations
- Huazhong University of Science and Technology (CN)
- Renmin University of China (CN)
- Macau University of Science and Technology (MO)
- Dalhousie University (CA)
- Wuhan University (CN)
- Corresponding author
- Zhu, Chengyan
- Venue
- Frontiers in Public Health
- Publisher
- Frontiers Media SA
- Published
- 2022-10-25
- Volume
- 10
- Pages
- 1000504-1000504
- ISSN
- 2296-2565 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC9642089
- OpenAlex
- W4307374050
- Cited by
- 62
- References
- 58
- Citations by year
- 2026: 25 · 2025: 19 · 2024: 15 · 2023: 3
- FWCI
- 1.38
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Frontiers in Public Health (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Bullying, Victimization, and Aggression
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Hate Speech and Cyberbullying Detection
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Impact of Technology on Adolescents
- Keywords
- cyberbullying, children, adolescents, cyberbullying perpetration, cyber victimization, bystander behavior, online harassment, cyberstalking, power imbalance, scale validity
- MeSH terms
- Cyberbullying, Adolescent, Child, Humans, Crime Victims, Bullying
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