57% of young Quebecers have experienced cyberbullying: study

More than half (57 per cent) of Quebecers aged 10 to 18 have already been cyberbullied.

That’s according to a study commissioned by the online protection company McAfee.

Of those, only 22 per cent of young Quebecers have sought help. Another 22 per cent say they have hidden the situation from their parents.

Seventy-eight per cent of Quebec parents said they took concrete measures to protect their child, compared to 85 per cent globally. These measures include discussion (66 per cent), monitoring of electronic devices (53 per cent), meeting with the school administration (28 per cent), therapy (11 per cent) and changing schools (eight per cent).

While the Quebec numbers may seem high, the rate of children being bullied online is still lower than the Canadian (60 per cent) and global (63 per cent) averages.

In Canada, children mainly report incidents where they have received insults (46 per cent), experienced a form of exclusion on social media (34 per cent) or been the subject of false rumors (20 per cent).

Eleven per cent of young Canadians say they have suffered harassment or physical threats. An even larger proportion say they have experienced sexual harassment (14 per cent).

The other forms of bullying identified by the study are ‘trolling’ (intentionally instigating a conflict for one’s own amusement), ‘doxing’ (publicly revealing information allowing one to find someone, such as their name, address or school) and the disclosure of sexual orientation or identity.

In total, 24 per cent of young Canadians say they have already deleted a social media account in order to escape cyberbullying.

In Canada, Facebook is the platform where children experience (59 per cent) or witness (48 per cent) cyberbullying the most. It is closely followed by Instagram, which also belongs to the Meta company, then by YouTube, TikTok and Twitter.