VALENCIA, Spain, Dec. 14 (UPI) -- Cyberbullying is becoming common, a Spanish study found, and 25 percent of teenagers surveyed say they've been bullied via their cellphone or on the Internet.
Researchers at the University of Valencia carried out a survey in 11 secondary schools in Valencia in 2009 with 2,101 teenagers between the ages of 11 and 17 responding; 1,098 were boys and 1,003 were girls, a university from the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology said Tuesday.
"The data from our study shows that technological bullying affects 24.6 percent of teenagers in the case of mobile telephony, and 29 percent with regard to the Internet," Sofia Buelga, co-author of the study and a researcher at UV, said.
"In the large majority of cases, this abuse lasts for a month or less," she said.
Although cyberbullying is a short-lived problem for most adolescents, there is a "relatively small, but significant" percentage of teenagers who have been subject to bullying of moderate or severe intensity lasting months or even years, the study found.
The most commonly used means for ongoing bullying is the cellphone, researchers say.
"This could be explained by the availability and central importance that mobile phones have in life," Buelga said. "Previous studies have shown that teenagers aged between 12 and 14 have had an average of three mobile phones, and 63 percent of them never switch them off."
Girls suffer more bullying than boys in most cases, particularly verbal bullying, invasions of privacy, spreading of rumors and social exclusion, the study found.
