Abstract:

Cyberbullying is defined as a form of harassment involving the use of electronic devices and the Internet to harass, threaten or intimidate someone (Sastre, 2016). Although it is creating a great social alarm and arousing the interest of the scientific community, understanding and accepting their existence becomes complicated, since it is inevitable that people associate virtuality with something non-existent. By not being tangible, it does not seem to be real, lacking in objectivity. But the data suggest that it is something real, that in fact is increasing and that, in a lot of cases, carries harmful consequences for all involved: victims, bullies and bystander. As is sometimes the case in the study of social and educational phenomena, the variety of instruments and methods used to determine their incidence leads to the lack of precise prevalence figures. However, it is clear that it is growing significantly in the school population (Giménez et al., 2013). Specifically, Peláez (2012) points out that 16.7% of young people suffer cyberbullying in countries such as Spain, Germany, Canada, France, Australia, USA, Italy, UK and Japan. Although the scientific literature focuses its interest on youngsters from 12 to 18 years of age, the evidence found allows them to detect their presence in the last years of primary education, even occurring in university groups (Albaladejo & Caruana, 2014; Cassidy, Jackson & Faucher, 2016; Rio Polo et al., 2014). There are many authors who have tried to understand what factors predispose them to participate in these events. Thus, Rial et al. (2015) have emphasized that being a woman constitutes a risk factor for any role, as well as the presence of physical and psychosocial problems. In the same vein, other studies indicate factors related to the approval of the peer group (Sasson & Mesch, 2014), lack of empathy (Renati, Berrone & Zanetti, 2012) and moral disconnection (Gini, Pozzoli & Hymel, 2014), among others. Likewise, it is stated that the victims are usually young people in situations of vulnerability (sex, nation, socioeconomic level, etc.), with particular emphasis on sexual minorities. As for family factors, variables such as communication between members, attachment quality or the experience of violence, predispose them to being aggressors (Makri-Botsari & Karagianni, 2014), as well as belonging to single-parent or reconstituted families do both in the role of victim and the aggressor, not in the case of bystanders (Giménez, 2015). This review study is especially relevant when it comes to knowing the incidence rates in cyberbullying, as well as the risk factors that may predispose them to participate as a victim, a bully or an observer. All this will guide the development of effective intervention programs, as well as the design of prevention strategies to combat a reality that not only disturbs young people to violence, but also causes negative consequences for all involved, being in many cases irreversible.