Cyberbullying in the UK: The Effect of Global Crises on the Victimization Rates

Previous research has shown that the utilization of electronic devices with internet access has increased rapidly over the past years. With that increase, comes the increased victimization of internet users from cyberbullies. However, we do not know to what level that increase affected the cyberbullying rates in the UK. The current study assessed whether cyber-bullying incidents had increased in the UK during the lockdown period, mainly because of the skyrocketing of the social media use and other online platforms. Overall, the results of this study indicated that the prevalence of cyber-victimization and perpetration declined during the lockdowns when compared to pre-March 2020 rates, and cyber-bullying bystander behaviors increased during the pandemic. Further research is in need to examine the latter assumption. Implications and limitations are discussed.