Recent studies indicate that approximately 20-35% of teenagers report involvement traditional, offline bullying either as a bully, a victim, or both (Bannink, Broeren, Van de Looij-Jansen, de Waart, & Raat , 2014). According to Hoff and Mitchell (2009), “bullying is unwanted, aggressive behavior among school-aged children and teenagers that involves a real or perceived power imbalance”. Typically, there are four types of bullying: verbal, physical, relational, and indirect. However, there is a new form of bullying that has become more prevalent among Internet users worldwide and has recently been subjected to intense media scrutiny largely due to a number of high profile and tragic cases of teen suicide, and that is cyberbullying. Hoff and Mitchell (2009) define cyber bullying as “intentional, aggressive behavior that is performed through electronic means such as PDAs, computers, tablets, cellphones, and etc.”. The most common places that cyberbullying takes place are chat rooms, emails, and social network sites. Furthermore, recent studies have indicated that cyberbullying is becoming increasing popular issue among older adolescents and college students (Mitchell, & Hoff, 2009). Cyberbullying is a new form of intimidation and harassment that is more challenging to identify than traditional bullying, but possesses an equally, if not more, detrimental effect on the victim.
Cyberbullying has been discussed as being worse than traditional bullying in its consequences for the victim. The long-term impact of cyber bullying is greater than with traditional bullying. Digital images, cell phones, and other electronic means can greatly increase the speed in which the bully's messages can spread. Sher and Vilens write, "Harmful messages intended to undermine the reputation of a victim can be far more damaging than face-to-face altercations. Instead of remaining a