Computers in Human Behavior 29 (2013) 16–25

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Computers in Human Behavior

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/comphumbeh

Facebook bullying: An extension of battles in school

Grace Chi En Kwan, Marko M. Skoric ⇑
Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, Nanyang Technological University, 31 Nanyang Link, Singapore 637718, Singapore

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This study examines the phenomenon of cyberbullying on Facebook and how it is related to school bul-
Available online 11 August 2012 lying among secondary school students in Singapore, aged 13–17. We also focus on generic use of Face-
book and risky Facebook behaviors as the predictors of cyberbullying and victimization on Facebook.
Keywords: 1676 secondary students, from two secondary schools, participated in a pen and paper survey. The find-
Facebook ings show that the intensity of Facebook use and engagement in risky Facebook behaviors were related to
Cyberbullying Facebook victimization and Facebook bullying, respectively. Moderately strong positive relationships
Risky Facebook use
between school bullying and Facebook bullying, as well as between school victimization and Facebook
Singapore
victimization, were also uncovered.
Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Research on bullying has been carried out for decades. The rea-
son for this drive to understand the phenomenon lies in the fact that
victims of bullying experience a range of negative effects from poor
academic performance to emotional trauma and even suicide
(Dupper & Meyer-Adams, 2002; Glover, Gough, Johnson, & Cart-
wright, 2000; Ma, Phelps, Lerner, & Lerner, 2009; Meadows,
2005). However, while researchers have been focused on studying
face-to-face (FTF) or traditional bullying, communication technolo-
gies have been evolving. Social interactions are now occurring in a
technology-mediated context as much as they are occurring FTF.
Furthermore, the widespread use of social network sites (SNSs)
and content-sharing sites has significantly transformed the nature
of everyday social interactions.
Accompanying this shift in communication is the emergence of
cyberbullying. Essentially, cyberbullying is bullying that occurs via
information and communication technologies (ICTs). This study
more specifically focuses on bullying that happens via Facebook,
a popular SNS, which has an estimated 2.4 million users in Singa-
pore, as of April 2011, of which, 13% are aged 13–17 (Socialbakers.,
2011). Aside from the fact that Facebook is a popular social net-
work site (SNS) among Singaporeans, this study focused on Face-
book as a case study for bullying over SNS due to the specific
affordances of the platform. Social network sites allow users to
post comments on each other’s profile pages, send private mes-
sages, comment on each other’s postings, upload photos and vid-
eos, organize group events and join interest groups. While being
a facilitator of social interaction, these same tools could also be
used for cyberbullying. Examples of teenage victimizations on so-
⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +65 6316 8893; fax: +65 6792 4329.
E-mail address: marko@ntu.edu.sg (M.M. Skoric).
cial network sites could be found in the United States as well as
in Singapore, the research site for this study. While there has been
plenty of research looking into cyberbullying across different plat-
forms, none has specifically measured bullying that takes place
over SNSes, such as Facebook. By tailoring measures of cyberbully-
ing of Cassidy, Jackson, and Brown (2009) and Patchin and Hinduja
(2010) to the context of Facebook, this study hopes to contribute to
the literature of cyberbullying by exploring how it is manifested on
a social network site.
Research shows that the likelihood of being involved in cyber-
bullying is predicted by the time spent online (Hinduja & Patchin,
2008) and risky online behaviors (Erdur-Baker, 2010). Therefore,
this study also examines how the intensity of Facebook use (Elli-
son, Steinfield, & Lampe, 2007) and engagement in risky Facebook
use relate to both the involvement in Facebook bullying and likeli-
hood of Facebook victimization. We also seek to establish the rela-
tionship between school bullying and victimization and their
Facebook equivalents.
2. Literature review
2.1. Defining bullying
Bullying can be defined as a prolonged mistreatment by a person
who harbors malicious intentions and who is perceived to be more
powerful than the victim of abuse (Hinduja & Patchin, 2007). Face-
to-face (FTF) bullying can be carried out physically, verbally or
relationally (Woods & Wolke, 2004). Physical and verbal bullying
are forms of direct bullying. While physical bullying involves
hitting, taking of belongings, shoving, and kicking, verbal bullying
involves teasing, taunting, name-calling and being insulting.
Relational bullying is an indirect manner of bullying and involves
the spreading of gossip and rumors (Woods & Wolke, (2004)).

0747-5632/$ - see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2012.07.014
 G.C.E. Kwan, M.M. Skoric / Computers in Human Behavior 29 (2013) 16–25
In defining bullying, it is important to take into account the
motivations of the perpetrator. Rigby (2008) illustrated the differ-
ence between aggression and bullying using the following exam-
ple. Aggression may occur when two children resolve a conflict
in an aggressive manner, like that of fighting. However, this act
of aggression is not necessarily bullying if both parties are equal
in strength and there is no power differential between them. Bul-
lying carries with it a malicious intent to hurt a weaker party.
Therefore, bullying could also be defined as a ‘‘systematic abuse
of power in interpersonal relationships’’ (Rigby, 2008). This defini-
tion suggests that the perpetrator is conscious of the power differ-
ential and uses it to hurt the victim. The victim, in turn, feels
oppressed and helpless.
2.2. Prevalence of bullying
The prevalence of bullying has been studied in many different
countries and contexts. For example, 16% school children in
Australia, aged 7–17, reported being bullied (Rigby (2008)). In
Korea, a study of 13–15 year old youths found that around 14%
of students were involved in bullying (Rhee, Yun, & Khang,
2007), while panel study conducted on the Japanese form of bully-
ing, ijime, which consisted of name-calling, isolation and ignoring
of someone, is practiced by around 8% of primary school and junior
high school students (Taki, 2001). In Singapore, a study of primary
and secondary school students found that around 13% were bullied
on a weekly basis (Ng & Rigby, 2010) though 94.7% of respondents
have experienced at least one of the 21 types of bullying behaviors
listed in the questionnaire. These statistics suggests that bullying is
a problem that is common to cultures and nations, and that the so-
cial climate in Singaporean schools is similar to those in other
countries.
2.3. Demographic factors and bullying
Research on bullying has found several key demographic pat-
terns that affect likelihood of being involved in bullying. Boys, in
general, bully more often than girls (Boulton & Smith, 1994; Boul-
ton & Underwood, 1992; Rigby, 2008). Proportion of boys who re-
port high frequencies of victimization is also greater than that of
girls. Notably, boys and girls differ in the types of bullying they
experience. Boys are more likely to be physically bullied while girls
usually report being bullied verbally or relationally (Crick & Grot-
peter, 1995; Crick, Bigbee & Howes, 1996; Rigby, 2008; Smith &
Shu, 2000). As children grow up, they tend to engage in less bully-
ing. A study of 4000 students in Australia, grades 7–11, found that
victimization peaks at grade 8, followed by a decrease in reported
frequencies (Marsh, Parada, Craven, & Finger, 2004). However,
Rigby (2008) noted that changes in school environment, like that
of moving from primary to secondary school, might result in an in-
crease in bullying. He suggested that it is a result of a need to rees-
tablish social ranking and status in a new environment.
2.4. Bullying-conducive environments
Bullying usually occurs when there is a lack of adult supervision
and when there is a presence of an audience (Rigby, 2008). Smith &
Shu (2000) found that the common venues for school bullying to
occur were the playground, corridors and hallways. With the
advancement of various new communication platforms, the access
to such bullying-conducive environments is greatly increased. Fur-
thermore, parents often find it difficult to adapt to new online
environments as quickly as their children, failing to understand
their use for purely social purposes (Ribak, 2001).
Bullying which takes place over communication platforms like
email, chat rooms, mobile phones and websites is termed cyber-
17
bullying (Campbell, 2005). Willard (2007) listed eight forms of
cyberbullying:
1. Flaming: Angry and vulgar online exchanges.
2. Harassment: Repeated sending of nasty and insulting messages
to the victim.
3. Denigration: Spreading of rumors and gossiping about a person
online to damage his/her reputation or friendship.
4. Impersonation: To cause someone to get into trouble or to dam-
age someone’s reputation by pretending to be that person and
sending material on that person’s behalf.
5. Outing: Sharing secrets or humiliating information of another
person on the Internet.
6. Trickery: To convince someone to share humiliating informa-
tion, then making the information available online.
7. Exclusion: To intentionally exclude someone from an online
group in order to cause hurt to the person.
8. Cyberstalking: To repeatedly harass someone such that the per-
son feels threatened or afraid.
Victims of cyberbullying have been found to suffer significant
psychological harm like feeling threatened and distressed
(National Center for Missing, 2000), and have even committed
suicide when they were no longer able to cope with the abuse
(Meadows, 2005, March 14). In a study of adolescents’ experiences
with cyberbullying, about half of the respondents thought that
cyberbullying had an equal or more serious impact than traditional
bullying (Kapatzia & Sygkollitou, 2007).
A well-known case of cyberbullying involved Megan Meyer, a
teenage girl from Missouri, US (Steinhauer, 2008, November 26).
Megan committed suicide after being harassed by an adult, who
posed as a 16-year-old boy in MySpace. It was later discovered that
the adult was the mother of the girl’s friend. Another publicized
incident of cyberbullying occurred in 2003, in which a video tape
of a Canadian teenager pretending to be a character from Star Wars
was stolen from his school and uploaded onto a website (Snider &
Borel, 2004). This attracted millions of hits to the website and the
teenager was teased relentlessly in school, causing him to change
schools. Though these were isolated incidents of cyberbullying,
they illustrate how cyberbullying can have real and devastating
impact on its victims. While cyberbullying excludes the possibility
of physical abuse that is common in FTF bullying, research has
found that compared to physical abuse and direct verbal abuse,
relational abuse causes greater distress (Coyne, Archer & Elsea,
2006). Sharp’s (1995) study on 13–16 years old secondary students
also found that indirect aggression, involving spreading rumors
and telling tales to be perceived as most hurtful.
2.5. Cyberbullying in technophilic Singapore
In 2009, 81% of Singapore households had Internet access (Info-
comm Development Authority, 2010) and mobile penetration rate
stood at 137.4% (Infocomm Development Authority, 2010). Singap-
oreans aged 15 and above, spent an average of 21 h online in the
month of February in 2009 (comScore (March 27, 2009, March
27. Online users spent an average of 10 h in April 2010 viewing on-
line videos, watching a total of 320 million videos in that month
alone (comScore, 2010b, June 3). The younger users, between the
ages of 15 and 24, were found to display the strongest online video
engagement, watching 192 videos per viewer in April 2010. Fur-
thermore, Internet users are found to spend 24.2% of their time
on Instant Messaging and 8% on social network sites (comScore
(March 27, 2009, March 27). In fact, Singapore was ranked 5th in
SNS penetration rate in the Asia Pacific markets with 83.7% pene-
tration rate as of February 2010 (comScore, 2010a, April 7).
18 G.C.E. Kwan, M.M. Skoric / Computers in Human Behavior 29 (2013) 16–25
The likelihood of being involved in cyberbullying is predicted by
the time spent online (Hinduja & Patchin, 2008). Given that, it is no
wonder that cyberbullying is becoming a cause for concern in a
technophilic society such as Singapore. It was found that among
Singaporean students, ages 13–17, 25% have experienced cyberbul-
lying and 31% reported being cyberbullied on top of being bullied
in school (Chew, 2010). These figures included reports of bullying
over various communication platforms, including chat rooms,
emails, instant messages, blogs and mobile phones. Specifically,
stories of cyberbullying occurring in social media have called to
attention the misuse of these platforms.
In 2008, a 16-year-old Singaporean girl was found to create fake
profiles on social network sites, such as MySpace and Facebook, to
befriend people whom she disliked in school. After making friends
with them online, she started hurling insults at them (Tan, 2008,
December 15). The school discovered what she was doing and
she was stopped before the victims suffered deeper emotional
scars (Tan, 2008, December 15). Another 14-year-old Singaporean
boy was spammed with sexually offensive messages through his
Friendster account. Even after reporting to the police, the cyberbul-
lies were never found and the boy was told that nothing else could
be done (Tan, 2009, February 11). These are but a few stories of
cyberbullying. It is likely that many cyberbullying victims are suf-
fering in silence. This trend, however, has triggered efforts from the
Singapore Ministry of Education to combat cyberbullying by intro-
ducing a framework that aims to encourage respectful interactions
on cyberspace and to raise awareness of issues regarding Internet
safety (Ng, 2010).
Given the extant literature on cyberbullying, paired with the
widespread use of SNSes in Singapore, the study proposes the fol-
lowing hypotheses regarding the generic use of Facebook and
involvement in Facebook bullying and Facebook victimization:
H1. Intensity of Facebook use is positively related to engagement
Facebook bullying.
H2. Intensity of Facebook use is positively related to Facebook
victimization.
Furthermore, Facebook has been found not only to extend one’s
online social network, but also to be of prime importance for the
maintenance of existing offline relationships (Ellison et al., 2007).
boyd and Ellison (2007) described social network sites as egocen-
tric networks, in which individuals are at the center of their own
online social networks. The overlap between offline and online so-
cial networks is likely to result in the translation of power relation-
ships which exist in offline networks to online networks. For these
reasons, this study proposed the following hypotheses:
H3. Engagement in school bullying is positively related to engage-
ment in Facebook bullying.
H4. School victimization is positively related to Facebook
victimization.
While Facebook has features that facilitate the extension one’s
social network and maintenance of existing relationship with
acquaintances and friends, (Ellison et al., 2007), these same fea-
tures can also be used with ill intentions to harass and abuse oth-
ers. Intuitively, one may understand cyberbullying to be simply an
extension of FTF bullying to ICT platforms. However, three key
characteristics of cyberbullying distinguish it from FTF bullying:
wider audience, (Campbell, 2005; National Center for Missing &
Exploited Children, 2006; Shariff, 2005), longevity of message
(Cassidy et al., 2009) and anonymity of bully (Campbell, 2005;
Chisholm, 2006; Shariff, 2005).
2.5.1. Wider audience
The first two characteristics (i.e. wider audience, longevity of
message) of cyberbullying relate to the effectiveness of the Internet
as a communication tool. SNS have become a key platform for on-
line interaction among Singaporean youths (comScore, 2010a,
April 7) and vast amounts of content sharing takes place over social
media. The connectivity provided by the Internet allows audiences,
beyond one’s social circle, to access humiliating content. Facebook,
in particular, has various applications, which allow users to effi-
ciently search and find long-lost friends or add new friends to their
networks. Friends Finder, for example, acts like a search engine for
friends. By suggesting friends to users based on number of mutual
friends, this application can be used to expand one’s Facebook net-
work easily.
While FTF bullying usually involves the interaction between the
bully and the victim, cyberbullying may be witnessed by the un-
known masses on the Internet. Slonje and Smith (2008), in their
study on Swedish adolescents, ranging from 12 to 20 years, found
that cyberbullying that used pictures or video clips were perceived
as having greater impact than traditional bullying due to the visual
information and the fear of an unknown audience for these
materials.
2.5.2. Longevity of messages
The Internet’s capacity for storing an unlimited amount of con-
tent for an extended period of time constitutes another character-
istic of cyberbullying. Longevity of messages in cyberbullying
challenges the definition of FTF bullying, which involves abuse that
takes place over a period of time. Uploaded video clips or posts,
containing abusive content, can be accessed long after they were
first posted. As digital content is easily replicated (boyd, 2008), on-
line content can be downloaded and ‘‘reposted’’ in its exact form. In
this regard, cyberbullies lose some, if not all, of the ownership and
distribution control of the content once it is posted online. Unlike
FTF bullying where one can be held accountable for ones’ actions
and words, cyberbullying allows diffusion of responsibility. Audi-
ences of cyberbullying may feel less personally responsible for
redistributing content due to the large number of people engaged
in the same activity (Petty, Harkins, Williams, & Latane, 1977).
The terms of Facebook use also state that users, depending on
their privacy and account settings, grants Facebook ‘‘a non-exclu-
sive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license
to use any IP content’’ posted on Facebook (Facebook, 2010). This
copyright license will only end when users delete their Facebook.
However, if the content has been shared with other users, Face-
book continues to own this content. Therefore, victims of Facebook
bullying are subjected, not only perpetrators’ abuse, but feel help-
less against corporate ownership of this abusive content that may
continue to circulate long after the incident occurred.
The provision of sensitive and personal information on Face-
book puts individuals in vulnerable positions, and could be used
as ammunition by people with malicious intentions. The same
affordances which allow Facebook users to connect and share
information could be used to cause mental and emotional abuse.
Therefore, this study proposed the following hypothesis:
H5. Engagement in risky Facebook use is positively related to
victimization on Facebook.
2.5.3. Anonymity in cyberbullying
Computer-mediated communication (CMC) provides the users
with the option of remaining anonymous. Interaction in chat
rooms, over emails and even social media can occur without full
disclosure of one’s identity. Anonymity is associated with disinhib-
iting effect when engaging in CMC, which may change the manner
 G.C.E. Kwan, M.M. Skoric / Computers in Human Behavior 29 (2013) 16–25
of self-disclosure and self-portrayal. The online disinhibition effect
is defined as the ‘‘loosening of psychological barriers that serve to
block the release of innermost, private thoughts, feelings, and
needs’’ (Chisholm, 2006, pp. 77). Indeed, it was found that a signif-
icant number of teenagers admitted to taking on alternative perso-
nas online and engaging in online activities in which they would
not have taken part in real life (Cassidy et al., 2009). While many
Facebook users choose to reveal their identity in order to facilitate
social interactions with their offline friends, it is possible to create
several accounts and assume various online personas. In South
Korea, users of the SNS, Cyworld, are required to provide their na-
tional identity numbers when registering an account. Facebook,
however, does not have such measures in place to ensure that each
user is interacting using their true or offline identity. Therefore, the
option to assume another identity on Facebook may empower
Facebook bullies, who might not have engaged in abuses using
their real identities, although this does not seem to be common
practice.
The disinhibition effect of CMC also shelters the cyberbully from
the consequence of his or her actions (Blumenfeld, 2005). Perhaps
due to the disinhibiting effects of CMC, cyberbullying was found to
be more retaliatory than FTF bullying (Erdur-Baker, 2010). It is pos-
sible that victims of cyberbullying may also be empowered to en-
gage in retaliatory attacks through the online medium. Therefore,
this study proposed the following hypothesis:
H6. Engagement in Facebook bullying is positively related to
victimization on Facebook.
3. Method
3.1. Design and sample
The data for this study is obtained through convenience sam-
pling of secondary school students in Singapore, aged 13–17. Data
collection was completed over a span of 3 weeks in March 2011.
The survey questionnaires were available only in English. Before
proceeding with data collection, a sample of the questionnaire
was sent to the Ministry of Education to seek permission to collect
data in the secondary schools. The questionnaire was approved by
the Ministry to ensure that it did not contain sensitive or inappro-
priate questions. The researcher approached the principals of sev-
eral secondary schools to seek permission to conduct data
collection in their respective schools. The schools approached con-
sisted of government, government-aided, independent, single-sex
and co-ed schools. However, the researcher was only able to gain
access to two government co-ed schools. The researcher was able
to collect data from the entire school from School A and 10 classes
from School B. However, the questionnaires from one class of
School A were misplaced while in the care of the teacher-in-charge.
A total of 1676 questionnaires were collected, of which, only 1597
were included in the analysis as 79 respondents were foreigners
and thus excluded from the analysis.
It is advised that when using a non-probability sample in a sta-
tistical analysis, a comparison between the convenience sample
and the population across a range of variables can strengthen the
case for its representativeness (Wilkinson & the Task Force on Sta-
tistical Inference, 1999). Because this study used a non-probability
sample, a comparison between the demographic information from
the sample and that of official national data was performed, indi-
cating that the sample is a good representation of the population.
The sample was found to reasonably approximate the Singapore
population in terms of race and gender. 48% of the sample was
males, and 52% was females. 72.2% of the respondents were Chi-
nese, 15.2% was Malay, 7.7% was Indian and 2.9% was of other
19
races. Respondents were evenly divided across the ages of 13–17,
with only 0.7% being age 18 and above. The mean age of the sample
was 15. Majority of the sample was in the Express stream (54.2%),
followed by the Normal (Academic) (32.6%) and Normal (Techni-
cal) (12.5%) streams. Students from the Express stream were
slightly under-represented (Ministry of Education Singapore.,
2010). Majority (68.8%) of the sample reported living in 4-room
and 5-room HDB (subsidized public housing) flats. The median
parental highest education qualifications were ‘O’ Levels. Majority
(80.8%) of the sample did not employ domestic helpers. Means and
stand deviations of all variables are presented in Table 1.
3.2. Procedure
The questionnaires were administered by the form teacher of
each class during their home period. Each form teacher was given
an instruction sheet to ensure that: enough time was allowed for
the completion of the questionnaires, students did not write their
names on the questionnaires and that students did not discuss
their answers while filling in the questionnaires. At the beginning
of the questionnaire, the respondent were informed that they
could skip questions should they feel uncomfortable answering
them. The completed questionnaires from each class were then
handed to the person-in-charge at each school.
3.3. Measures
3.3.1. Cyberbullying
To assess the extent to which Singaporean youths experience
cyberbullying, two scales measuring cyberbullying behaviors (bul-
lying and victimization) were developed based on the measure-
ments used in the studies by Cassidy et al. (2009) and Patchin
and Hinduja (2010). As this study focuses on cyberbullying that oc-
curs on Facebook, the items were rephrased so that they are rele-
vant to the platform. Respondents were asked to indicate the
number of times (Never, Once, 2–4 times, 5–7 times, 8–10 times
or More than 10 times) at which they have engaged in specific bul-
lying activities since the start of the school year. The scale was reli-
able with Cronbach’s a of .86.
Respondents were also asked to indicate the number of times
(Never, Once, 2–4 times, 5–7 times, 8–10 times or More than 10
times) at which they experienced cyberbullying since the start of
the school year. The scale was reliable with Cronbach’s a of .89.
3.3.2. School bullying
In order to provide a context in which cyberbullying is taking
place and to understand how Facebook bullying is related to school
bullying, this study included measures for school bullying and vic-
timization. The scale is similar to that of Facebook bullying in that
it provides a list of different instances of bullying instead of asking
the respondent if they have bullied directly. The items of the school
bullying scale were adapted from the questionnaire used by Ng &
Rigby’s (2010) in a study based in Singapore. These items consisted
of physical, verbal and relational bullying and students were asked
the number of times they have experienced or engaged in these
activities in the past school year (Never, Once, 2–4 times, 5–7
times, 8–10 times or More than 10 times). There are 14 items for
school victimization (Cronbach’s a = .88) and 14 items (Cronbach’s
a = .90) for school bullying.
3.3.3. Facebook use
Facebook users were asked to respond to a series of questions
based on the Facebook Intensity scale (Cronbach’s a = .82) (Ellison
et al., 2007). These questions include the number of friends they
had and amount of time spent on Facebook. The respondents were
asked six questions which measured their level of attachment to
20 G.C.E. Kwan, M.M. Skoric / Computers in Human Behavior 29 (2013) 16–25

Table 1 were measured. Other than the intensity of Facebook use, a scale
Demographic information. was created to measure the level of risky Facebook use that youths
Demographic information % engaged in on Facebook. These items consist of measures for per-
Age sonal information disclosure, posting of content which could com-
13 22.0 promise one’s safety and befriending strangers. This measure was
14 23.3 moderately reliable with a Cronbach’s a of .72.
15 25.4 All the above measures were pretested with about 40 secondary
16 22.0
17 7.3
school students aged 13–17 before data collection commenced, to
ensure satisfactory reliability scores. Wordings of questions were
Gender
Male 48.4
also edited after the pretest to ensure that students were able to
Female 51.6 understanding the wordings of the questions.
Race
Chinese 73.7
Malay 15.5 4. Findings
Indian 7.9
Other 2.9
4.1. Prevalence of Facebook bullying
Secondary level
1 19.5
2 23.9
Facebook bullying seemed to be relatively common with 59.4%
3 25.4 of Facebook users (n = 1493) reported experiencing at least one
4 24.8 form of bullying in the past year and 56.9% of users (n = 1491)
5 6.4 admitting to engaging in at least one form of Facebook bullying.
Academic stream The frequency of each Facebook bullying instance is presented
Express 54.6 in Tables A.1 and A.2, which can be found in Appendix A. It was
Normal (academic) 32.8
found that the receiving of nasty messages was the most common
Normal (technical) 12.6
form of Facebook bullying, with 28.5% of respondents experiencing
Housing
this at least once in the last school year. Other common forms of
1-room HDB 1.2
2-room HDB 6.1 Facebook bullying include being insulted on Facebook repeatedly
3-room HDB 6.0 and being made a laughing stock on Facebook by others, 22.6%
4-room HDB 36.3 and 23.3% of respondents have experienced these respectively.
5-room HDB 32.5 Being threatened on Facebook, being excluded from Facebook
Condominium and private 8.1
flats
groups, and being tricked into revealing secrets on Facebook are
Terrace house 3.1 the least common forms of Facebook victimization. Less than
Semi-detached bungalow 1.8 5% of respondents have experienced these types of Facebook
Other 0.6 bullying.
Mother’s education level On other hand, blocking someone on Facebook seems to be
No formal education 8.6 quite commonly practiced among the youths surveyed; around
PSLE 16.0
half of the respondents (45.5%) have blocked someone on Facebook
‘N’ Levels 5.5
‘O’ Levels 34.5 at least once. 13% of respondents said that they have sent nasty
NITEC/ITE 2.2 messages to someone on Facebook and 13.9% admitted to saying
‘A’ Levels 6.4 something to make someone a laughing stock on Facebook. Mas-
Diploma 11.8 querading, threatening others and hacking into someone’s Face-
University degree 11.7
book account are the least common forms of Facebook bullying
Post graduate 3.4
practiced by the youths, with less than 2% of respondents admit-
Father’s education level
ting to engaging in these activities.
No formal education 5.4
PSLE 16.1
‘N’ Levels 5.7
‘O’ Levels 27.5 4.2. Prevalence of school bullying
NITEC/ITE 5.0
‘A’ Levels 4.4
Diploma 14.0
In general, school bullying seems to be more prevalent than
University degree 16.6 Facebook bullying. 84.5% of respondents (n = 1590) reporting hav-
Post graduate 5.3 ing experienced at least form of bullying at least once in the past
school year. 71.4% of respondents (n = 1589) admitted to engaging
in at least one form of bullying at least once in the past school year.
The frequencies of school bullying are reported in Tables A.3
and A.4, which can be found in Appendix A. The most common
Facebook on five-point Likert scales (1 = Strongly Disagree; forms of school bullying are hitting, punching, biting, pushing
5 = Strongly Agree). These include: Facebook is part of my everyday and shoving, with 61.1% of respondents saying that they have
activity; I am proud to tell people I am on Facebook; Facebook has experienced this at least once in the school year and 46.6% admit-
become part of my daily routine; I feel out of touch if I do not log ting to engaging in these types of bullying before. The use of vulgar
into Facebook for a while; I feel that I am part of the Facebook com- language is also common among the youths. 58.6% of respondents
munity; I would be sorry if Facebook shuts down. All 8 items were have been verbally abused at least once and 46.6% said that they
combined to form a measure for the intensity of Facebook use. In have used vulgarities against someone. The least common form
addition to the Facebook intensity scale, risky Facebook usage of bullying reported in the demanding of money, with 10.6% of
was also measured. Engagement in risking cyber behaviors like respondents experiencing this and 4.9% engaging in this form of
sharing of Facebook password, accepting friend requests from bullying. However, one may argue that 1 victim out of 10 students
strangers and posting of inappropriate information and photos is still a relatively high percentage.
 G.C.E. Kwan, M.M. Skoric / Computers in Human Behavior 29 (2013) 16–25 21

Table 2
Correlation matrix for demographics, Facebook use, emotional support and bullying.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
1 Age
2 Gender .04
3 Race .05 .03
4 Type of housing .02 .01 .001
5 Normal Stream .18** .16** .10 .08**
6 School Bully .06* .18** .01 .03 .09
7 School Victimization .05 .13** .08** .01 .15** .58**
8 Facebook Bully .002 .07* .01 .02 .01 .56** .33**
9 Facebook Victimization .05 .06* .02 .05 .04 .28** .48** .54**
10 Facebook Intensity .03 .02 .06* .01 .04 .12** .08** .16** .18**
11 Risky Facebook Use .17** .09** .02 .02 .10** .29** .14** .33** .22** .21**
*
p < .05.
**
p < .01.

Table 3
Regressions predicting school bullying, school victimization, Facebook bullying and victimization from demographic, school bullying involvement, Facebook usage variables, and
Facebook bullying variables (N = 1446).

School bullying School victimization Facebook bullying Facebook victimization

b b b b
Demographics
Age .06 .10** .03 .02
Gender .11** .01 .03 .01
Race .03 .08** .02 .02
Type of housing .02 .002 .01 .04
Normal stream .03 .10** .04 .01
R2 change .04** .04** .01 .01**
School bullying involvement
School bully – .58** .37** .18
School victimization .54** – .08** .44**
R2 change .31** .31** .24** .24**
Facebook usage
Intensity of Facebook use .09** .01 .004 .11**
Risky Facebook Use .18** .02 .14** .04
R2 change .04** .00 .04** .03**
Facebook bullying involvement
Facebook Bullying – – – .40**
Facebook victimization – – .40** –
R2 change – – .11** .11**
Total R2 adj. (%) 39.1 35.0 38.7 38.8
F 117.11** 97.89** 92.40** 92.85**

Table shows controls for age, gender and race.


p < .05.
**
p < .01.

4.3. Bivariate analyses
Pearson correlation coefficients were computed to access the
relationship between all demographic, school bullying and Face-
book bullying variables. The results are presented in Table 2.
victimization (r = .18, p < .001). Risky Facebook use was found to
be related to higher level of victimization on Facebook (r = .22,
p < .001). Interestingly, risky Facebook use was also found to be
positively related to engagement in Facebook bullying (r = .33,
p < .001).

4.3.1. Relationship between school and Facebook bullying
In general, being involved in school bullying is positively related
to being involved in Facebook bullying (r = .56, p < .001) as well as
to being victimized on Facebook (r = .28, p < .001). Being victimized
in school is positively related to being victimized on Facebook
(r = .48, p < .001) as well as to being a Facebook bully (r = .33,
p < .001).
4.3.2. Bullying and victimization on Facebook
It was found that level of engagement in Facebook bullying is
positively related to level of victimization on Facebook (r = .54,
p < .001).
4.3.3. Facebook use and Facebook bullying
The intensity of Facebook use was found to be positively related
to engaging in Facebook bullying (r = .16, p < .001) and Facebook
4.4. Multivariate analyses
4.4.1. Predicting engagement in Facebook bullying
Regression analysis predicting engagement in Facebook bully-
ing with engagement in school bullying, victimization in school,
Facebook usage, risky Facebook usage, and Facebook victimization
was conducted. Demographic variables of age, race, gender, type of
housing and academic stream were included in the analysis.
There was no significant relationship between intensity of Face-
book use and engagement in Facebook bullying. Therefore, H1 was
not supported. Engagement in school bullying (b = .37, p < .001)
was positively related to engagement in Facebook bullying, thus
supporting H3. School victimization was significantly negatively
related to Facebook bullying (b = .08, p < .001). Risky Facebook
use was significantly positively related to Facebook bullying
(b = .14, p < .001) as was Facebook victimization (b = .40, p < .001).
22 G.C.E. Kwan, M.M. Skoric / Computers in Human Behavior 29 (2013) 16–25

4.4.2. Predicting victimization on Facebook
Regression analysis predicting Facebook victimization with
engagement in school bullying, victimization in school, Facebook
usage, risky Facebook usage, and engagement in Facebook bullying
was conducted. Demographic variables of age, race, gender, type of
housing and academic stream were included in the analyses.
Intensity of Facebook use (b = .11, p < .001) was positively re-
lated to Facebook victimization, supporting H2; school victimiza-
tion (b = .44, p < .001) was also found to be positively related to
Facebook victimization, supporting H4. No significant relationship
was found between engagement in risky Facebook use and victim-
ization on Facebook; therefore, H5 is not supported. Engagement in
Facebook bullying (b = .40, p < .001) was found to be positively re-
lated to Facebook victimization, providing support for H6.
Lastly, for comparison purposes, we also provide the findings
from regression analyses analyzing the relationships between var-
ious predictor variables and school bullying and victimization as
the outcome variables (Table 3).
5. Discussion
This study set out to understand cyberbullying on a specific so-
cial media platform, one which has gained significant popularity
among youths around the world, including Singapore. The findings
show that while social network sites, like Facebook, were intended
for enhancing our social experiences, these experiences have not
been all positive for the vast majority of its users–more than half
of them have experienced at least one form of Facebook bullying
in the past year. Furthermore, many of these students have also en-
gaged in abusive actions on the platform.
Past studies on school bullying have uncovered specific patterns
with regards to age, gender and race. Rigby (2008) found that
minority racial groups reported higher frequencies of bullying than
other races. This study found support for the relationship between
demographic factors and school bullying. Essentially, school bullies
tend to be older children while younger children tend to experi-
ence more school victimization. Boys were also more likely to bully
their peers, while gender was not found to be related to the extent
to which one is bullied in school. In particular, racial minorities
were more likely to be bullied. This suggests that racial lines are
present in social interactions in Singapore schools and serves as
an important reminder for educators and parents to not take racial
harmony among Singaporean youths for granted. Interestingly, the
demographics factors were not important factors in Facebook bul-
lying. While this suggests less race-oriented bullying on Facebook,
the moderately strong relationship between being victimized in
school and on Facebook is worrying. Social networks maintained
on Facebook are largely relationships that are initiated offline.
Facebook is a platform on which offline relationships are main-
tained and expanded. Katzer, Fetchenhauer, and Belschak (2009)
found some similarities between the predictors of being victims
of offline and online bullying. Lower perceived popularity and low-
er self concepts predicted the likelihood of being a victim in school
as well as in chatrooms. Katzer and her colleagues suggested that
being socially excluded is probably an important factor leading
to being a victim. Therefore, the lack of social popularity in offline
and online contexts is predictive of victimization. Beran & Li (2007)
conceptualized this comparison between cyberbullying and FTF
bullying using the social rank theory, which ‘‘posits that the peer
group becomes established as a hierarchy whereby some students
use aggression to dominate their peers as a means of gaining pres-

Table A.1
Prevalence of Facebook victimization.

% Who have % Who had the % Who had the % Who had the % Who had the % Who had the
‘‘never’’ had the experience experience ‘‘2– experience ‘‘5– experience ‘‘8– experience ‘‘more
experience ‘‘once’’ 4 times’’ 7 times’’ 10 times’’ than 10 times’’
I have received nasty messages on Facebook which 71.5 14.4 10.2 2.3 .6 1.0
made me upset
I have received insulting Facebook messages/ 77.4 10.3 7.3 2.5 1.1 1.4
comments repeatedly
I have continued to receive insulting Facebook/ 91.3 4.2 2.8 .9 .4 .5
comments even after I have asked the sender to
stop
I have received unwanted sexual suggestions/ 89.1 5.3 3.2 1.0 .4 .9
sexually explicit pictures on Facebook
People have posted messages on Facebook about me 81.8 9.7 5.3 1.5 .5 1.1
that damaged my reputation
People have spread rumors about me on Facebook to 81.0 10.3 5.0 1.5 .9 1.3
damage my reputation
People have said things about me on Facebook that 85.9 8.0 3.5 1.0 .8 .8
caused my friends to dislike me
People have said things about me on Facebook to 76.7 11.7 7.3 2.1 .7 1.4
make me a laughing stock
Someone has hacked into my Facebook account and 92.5 4.9 1.3 .7 .1 .6
posted/sent messages to make me look bad
Someone has pretended to be me on Facebook and 94.7 4.1 .7 .2 .1 .2
put up personal/sensitive information about me
that I did not want others to know
Someone has shared my secrets on Facebook 89.9 6.6 2.5 .5 .3 .2
I have been tricked to share my secret which was 95.3 2.8 .9 .5 .3 .3
later spread on Facebook
I have felt betrayed by my friends who posted things 86.6 7.7 4.1 .9 .4 .3
about me on Facebook that I did not want others
to know
I have been blocked on Facebook by other people 80.7 14.2 3.7 .8 .1 .5
I have been deliberately excluded from a Facebook 95.2 2.9 1.4 .1 .1 .3
group by people
I have received threatening messages on Facebook 95.9 2.3 .8 .4 .2 .4
I feel like someone on Facebook is tracking my 92.2 4.8 1.4 .6 .1 .9
activities and wants to do me harm
 G.C.E. Kwan, M.M. Skoric / Computers in Human Behavior 29 (2013) 16–25 23

Table A.2
Prevalence of Facebook bullying.

% Who have % Who % Who % Of respondents % Who % Who engaged

‘‘never’’ had engaged in engaged in who engaged in engaged in in activity ‘‘more
engaged in activity activity ‘‘2–4 activity ‘‘5–7 activity ‘‘8–10 than 10 times’’
activity ‘‘once’’ times’’ times’’ times’’
I have sent nasty messages to someone on Facebook to 87.0 7.8 3.4 .7 .1 .9
upset the person
I have sent insulting Facebook messages/comments to 90.0 5.1 2.6 .9 .3 1.0
someone repeatedly
I have continued to send insulting Facebook/comments 95.8 1.7 1.5 .5 .1 .3
even after the person asked me to stop
I have made unwanted sexual suggestions and/or sent 98.5 .7 .5 0 0 .2
sexually explicit pictures to someone on Facebook
I have posted messages on Facebook about someone to 91.4 5.2 2.4 .5 .1 .4
damage the person’s reputation
I have spread rumors about someone on Facebook to 93.0 3.7 2.2 .6 .1 .3
damage the person’s reputation
I have said things about someone to cause the person to 91.8 5.7 1.6 .5 .2 .1
be disliked by his/her friends
I have said things about someone to make the person a 86.1 7.2 3.4 1.9 .5 .9
laughing stock
I have hacked into someone’s Facebook account and 97.2 1.7 .7 .1 .1 .3
posted/sent messages to make the person look bad
I have pretended to be someone else on Facebook and 98.0 1.5 .2 .1 .1 .1
put up personal/sensitive information about the
person that he/she did not want others to know
I have shared someone else’s secrets on Facebook 95.5 3.1 .5 .3 .3 .3
I have posted embarrassing photos or videos of 89.1 5.4 3.9 .4 .3 .9
someone else on Facebook
I have tricked someone into sharing his/her secret with 98.6 .7 .3 0 .2 .2
me which I then spread on Facebook
I have betrayed my friend by posting things about him/ 96.8 2.3 .6 .2 0 .1
her on Facebook, that he/she did not want others to
know
I have blocked someone on Facebook 55.5 19.8 16.7 3.3 .7 4.0
I have deliberately excluded someone from a Facebook 94.3 3.7 .9 .4 .2 .5
group to make him/her feel left out
I have sent threatening messages on Facebook 97.7 1.3 .5 .1 .2 .2
I have tried to make someone feel like I am tracking 98.0 1.1 .4 .1 .1 .3
his/her activities and feel threatened

Table A.3
Prevalence of school victimization.

% Who have % Who have the % Who have the % Who have the % Who have the % Who have the
‘‘never’’ had the experience ‘‘once’’ experience ‘‘2–4 experience ‘‘5–7 experience ‘‘8–10 experience ‘‘more than
experience times’’ times’’ times’’ 10 times’’
Hitting, pinching, biting, 38.9 13.3 17.5 8.6 3.3 18.4
pushing and shoving
Taking your belongings 54.6 16.8 16.5 6.3 1.5 4.3
and refusing to return
them
Hiding your belongings 53.6 15.9 16.8 6.2 2.1 5.4
Damaging your 70.3 13.9 9.9 2.7 .8 2.3
belongings
Demanding your money 89.4 5.0 2.7 1.5 .6 .8
Threatening and 81.3 7.7 4.9 1.9 1.1 3.1
intimidating you
Throwing things at you 60.6 13.9 12.1 5.7 2.0 5.7
Insulting you in front of 58.8 13.7 11.6 6.2 2.6 7.1
people
Calling you names that 58.4 13.2 11.2 5.9 2.2 9.1
hurt you
Spreading rumors about 55.1 15.2 13.0 6.2 2.8 7.6
you
Using vulgar language on 41.4 11.6 11.1 7.9 3.2 24.8
you
Making things up to get 71.7 11.2 7.8 4.4 1.8 3.2
you into trouble
Preventing others from 73.9 9.8 8.0 3.8 1.8 2.6
befriending you
Purposely leaving you out 70.7 11.2 8.3 4.2 1.8 3.8
of a group or isolating
you
24 G.C.E. Kwan, M.M. Skoric / Computers in Human Behavior 29 (2013) 16–25

Table A.4
Prevalence of school bullying.

% Who have ‘‘never’’ % Who engaged % Who engaged in % Who engaged in % Who engaged in % Who engaged in
had engaged in in activity activity ‘‘2–4 activity ‘‘5–7 activity ‘‘8–10 activity ‘‘more than 10
activity ‘‘once’’ times’’ times’’ times’’ times’’
Hitting, pinching, biting, pushing 55.5 12.2 12.1 4.8 2.0 13.4
and shoving someone
Taking someone’s belongings 75.7 10.4 7.9 2.5 .8 2.8
and refusing to return them
Hiding someone’s belongings 68.5 15.1 8.4 4.0 1.1 2.8
Damaging someone’s belongings 88.0 6.6 3.5 .6 .1 1.3
Demanding someone’s money 95.1 2.3 1.1 .4 .3 .8
Threatening and intimidating 88.3 4.7 3.8 1.1 .7 1.4
someone
Throwing things at someone 69.4 11.6 7.8 4.4 1.6 5.2
Insulting someone in front of 73.8 10.8 5.9 3.9 1.5 4.0
people
Calling someone names that hurt 70.7 11.6 8.4 3.8 1.1 4.4
him/her
Spreading rumors about 72.5 12.5 9.1 2.9 1.1 2.0
someone
Using vulgar language on 53.4 11.9 10.2 6.0 2.9 15.7
someone
Making things up to get 88.8 5.7 3.2 1.0 .6 .8
someone into trouble
Preventing others from 88.0 5.6 3.6 1.7 .5 .6
befriending someone
Purposely leaving someone out 83.6 8.7 4.3 1.8 .6 1.0
of a group or isolating
someone

tige, power, and access to resources’’ (p. 18). Similar to the present
study, their study found positive relationships between being an
offline bully and being a cyberbully. Olweus’s (1993) argued that
adolescents who engaged in bullying to gain social acceptance
would continue their behavior even when they grow up. This is be-
cause many of them do not develop other social skills to gain peer
acceptance. Therefore, it is not surprising that teenagers who bully
in school would fall back on bullying to gain social status in cyber-
space. Therefore, power relations that exist offline are translated
into the similar power dynamics online. As Facebook is usually
used to maintain and manage existing offline relationships (Ellison
et al., 2007), it is likely that offline bullying could find its way to
continue on Facebook, especially when bullies and victims share
the same network of friends. Indeed, looking at the multivariate
analyses, one can see that almost one quarter of the variance in
both Facebook bullying and victimization is explained by FTF bul-
lying. Interestingly, the same analyses show that offline victimiza-
tion did not translate into increased, but slightly decreased
likelihood of Facebook bullying, suggesting a potential magnifying
effect of Facebook on the existing power relationships in school.
It has been suggested that the prevention and intervention of
cyberbullying is difficult to carry out as it is difficult for adults to
monitor the online activities of youths (Campbell, 2005) especially
when parents find it difficult to wrap their heads around the way
their children use these new technologies (Ribak, 2001). The find-
ings of this study suggest that a student’s offline experience with
bullying is highly predictive of his/her involvement in cyberbully-
ing on Facebook. Parents and teachers can therefore improve their
supervision efforts by communicating with each other about their
observations at home and in school. If a teenager is often bullied in
school, parents can take steps to reduce his/her likelihood of
becoming a victim online. Some examples of protection could be
to customize privacy settings or block school bullies on Facebook
so that they are unable to access the teenager’s online profile.
The results of this study provide partial support for previous
findings, in which media use was found is be positively related
to involvement in cyberbullying (Ybarra & Mitchell, 2004). In this
study, we only found a weak relationship between Facebook inten-
sity and Facebook victimization, but none with Facebook bullying.
While practitioners have advised students to avoid high-risk
behaviors on cyberspace to avoid being victims of cyberbullying
(Ng & Rigby, 2010), the findings of this study showed that risky
Facebook use is positively related to engaging in Facebook bullying
and not Facebook victimization. Additional analyses not reported
in this paper indicate that Facebook bullies are more likely to dis-
close personal information like real names, contact number and
email addresses. This suggests greater confidence in using one’s
real identity in online interactions on Facebook. Self-esteem or
confidence is a trait that carries itself from offline social settings
to online ones (Katzer et al., 2009). More importantly, a lack of
self-confidence online can make one vulnerable to cyberbullying.
In this case, it seems like youths who have greater self-confidence
are also more likely to engage in Facebook bullying.
Rigby (2008), when discussing measurement of the severity of
bullying experience, suggested that the type of bullying, on top
of frequency should be accounted for so as to better understand
how the experience has affected the victim. In this study, the mea-
surement of Facebook bullying was done by listing various in-
stances of bullying which could possibly occur on the platform.
These include verbal as well as relational forms of bullying. By list-
ing different instances of cyberbullying, we are hopefully able to
capture the big picture of cyberbullying on Facebook and under-
stand the most common types of bullying that are currently occur-
ring on the platform. While some respondents have experienced
one form of bullying several times, others may have experienced
a wider variety of abuse, each occurring possibly only once.
6. Conclusion
Facebook has empowered youths by giving them more tools to
expand their social networks and maintain existing relationships.
However, the tool also serves as an additional channel through
which bullying could now travel from the school into one’s home.
Essentially, the root of the problem of bullying lies in the social
environment, be it poor parenting or hostile peer relationships. A
problem that exists in one’s social network would naturally also ex-
ist on an online platform that was designed to bring the network
online, and facilitate its maintenance and expansion. Therefore, in-
 G.C.E. Kwan, M.M. Skoric / Computers in Human Behavior 29 (2013) 16–25
stead of focusing on solutions which are specific to that of cyberbul-
lying, parents and schools should focus on the root of the problem,
which very frequently manifests itself in everyday school bullying.
It is also necessary to question the continued efforts in differentiat-
ing cyberbullying from school bullying. While the medium/envi-
ronments certainly differs, it seems that fundamental causes and
motivations are quite similar. Therefore, scholars may wish to veer
away from overly technology-reliant explanations of cyberbullying.
Rather, due to the affordances of social network sites, the conver-
gence of offline and online social networks has allowed offline
and online social problems to converge as well. It is important to
recognize this development in order to better inform educators
and parents on better ways to prevent bullying in school and online.
Appendix A
See Tables A.1–A.4.
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