Olomouc, North Moravia, April 26 (CTK) - More than a half of Czech teenagers (56.5 percent) were victims of cyber-bullying, according to a survey conducted by Palacky University in Olomouc, the project's head Veronika Krejci said Thursday.
The survey was conducted on 10,830 children aged from 11 to 17 in late 2011.
Krejci, from the university's Centre of prevention of risk virtual communication, said the situation has slightly improved as the 2010 survey showed that 59.4 percent of Czech teenagers then said they were cyber bullied.
"A very slight improvement can be seen. Children already have better information and take more care," Krejci said.
The survey was now conducted for the third time.
Children were most often humiliated, offended and ridiculed. Three out of ten were victim of such cyber-bullying, said Eva Votrubova, spokeswoman for a Czech campaign on electronic safety.
Cyber-bullying was most often reported on social networks (40.5 percent), SMS messages (27.7 percent) and ICQ or Skype (24.4 percent).
One out of ten of the teenagers admitted they committed cyber-bullying.
One out of six said they would never tell their parents if they were victims of cyber-bullying.
Krejci said cyber-bullying may be worse than standard bullying.
"The victim often does not know who is the attacker, against whom to defend and how," she said.
She added that cyber-bullying can be viewed by thousands of persons on the Internet and stopping it may be impossible.
Krejci said children should not post their personal data on the Internet, especially not their photos, and they and their parents should be aware of the risks of electronic communication.
She said cyber-bullying may be preceded by bullying in real life, and sometimes victims of real-life bullying become cyber-bullies.
http://praguemonitor.com/2012/04/27/survey-most-czech-teenagers-were-cyber-bullied