Cyberbullying among adolescents: understanding, detecting, and intervening in schools

In 2025, one in five enrolled adolescents reported being a victim of cyberbullying in the past twelve months. In middle schools, the proportion sometimes reaches one in four students in the 8th and 9th grades, the years when intensive use of social networks coincides with the turbulence of adolescent identity. Cyberbullying is no longer a marginal or emerging phenomenon: it is a mass reality that has settled into the daily lives of French schools and requires a response that matches its scale.

The difficulty for educational teams is real and documented: cyberbullying is fundamentally invisible from the school. It occurs on private messaging, in closed groups, on platforms that adults use little or not at all. It leaves digital traces that adults do not always know how to exploit. And victims, out of shame or fear, remain silent much longer than in situations of physical bullying.

This guide has been written for education professionals — teachers, school counselors, educational assistants, nurses, school leaders — who want to understand cyberbullying from the inside, learn to detect it despite its invisibility, and know what to do when a situation is identified. It also serves as an introduction to the foundations of the DYNSEO training dedicated to this issue.

1. What is cyberbullying? Precise definition and criteria

Cyberbullying — sometimes referred to by the English terms cyberbullying or online harassment — is a form of harassment carried out via digital tools and online communication spaces. Like in-person harassment, it meets three fundamental criteria: the repetition of aggressive acts, their intentionality, and the power imbalance between the perpetrator and the victim.

But cyberbullying has its own characteristics that make it a particularly devastating form. Where traditional harassment physically stops when the victim leaves the school environment, cyberbullying follows them everywhere and all the time. Where the audience of a humiliation in the playground is limited to a few dozen classmates present, that of humiliating content online can reach hundreds, thousands of people in a matter of hours.

What distinguishes cyberbullying from traditional harassment

Research in psychology and education sciences has identified five specific dimensions of cyberbullying that justify a distinct approach from professionals.

• The temporal permanence. Digital harassment knows no pause. Nighttime notifications, messages upon waking, posts discovered on the weekend: the victim is in a state of constant exposure, with no psychological respite. This continuity exhausts emotional resources much more quickly than occasional harassment.
• The amplification of the audience. Humiliating content — photo, video, message — can be shared at an unprecedented speed and scale. The victim's sense of shame is proportional to the number of potential witnesses, which can be perceived as limitless in the digital space.
• The permanence of traces. Unlike a spoken word in a hallway, digital content can resurface months or years later. This fear of resurgence creates chronic anxiety in victims, even after the end of active harassment acts.
• The possible anonymity of perpetrators. Harassers can hide behind pseudonyms or fake accounts, which reinforces their sense of impunity and the victim's feeling of helplessness, who does not always know who is targeting them.
• The inversion of the private sphere. The home, the bedroom, the intimate space of the teenager — meant to be safe places — become spaces of aggression. This invasion of the private sanctuary has particularly severe psychological consequences, especially on sleep and the fundamental sense of security.

2. Cyberbullying statistics in France among adolescents

The available data paints a concerning picture. The national observatory of high school life and the school victimization surveys conducted by the Ministry of National Education confirm a steady increase in cyberbullying since 2018, accelerated by the health crisis of 2020-2021 and the widespread use of smartphones among middle school students.

Nearly 40% of adolescents aged 11 to 18 report having been insulted, threatened, or bullied online at least once. The distinction between a one-time incident and repeated harassment brings the prevalence of cyberbullying in the strict sense to about 15 to 20% according to studies, with variations based on age, gender, and type of institution.

A particularly significant figure for education professionals: less than 20% of adolescents who are victims of cyberbullying talk to an adult at the institution. The majority manage alone, or at best confide in a close friend. This massive underreporting explains why the active observation of educational teams is the main detection pathway available.

3. Concrete forms of cyberbullying to know

A precise understanding of the forms that cyberbullying can take is essential for professionals. It allows for naming situations during discussions with students, better understanding the severity of what is described, and taking appropriate measures for each type of act.

Harassment via direct messages

Insults, threats, mockery sent en masse via SMS, WhatsApp, Messenger, or direct messaging on social networks. This form is often the most explicit and easiest to document thanks to screenshots. It can involve an isolated person or a coordinated group sending messages to the victim simultaneously.

Distribution of compromising content

The publication or sharing of photos, videos, or private information without the consent of the person concerned. This includes "revenge porn" among adolescents (distribution of intimate images), filmed and shared violence videos, and more broadly any public staging of the victim for humiliation purposes. French law qualifies some of these acts as criminal offenses, even for minor perpetrators.

Organized online exclusion

Deliberately removing a student from a class WhatsApp group, creating parallel groups from which they are explicitly excluded, organizing online activities (games, discussions) with all group members except them: this form of cyberbullying through exclusion is one of the most insidious as it leaves no visible trace of direct aggression. The victim is simply absent, and this absence is orchestrated.

Creation of malicious accounts or content

Creating a fake profile in the name of the victim to post embarrassing content, publishing memes ridiculing them, creating humiliating polls ("who is the ugliest in the class?"), launching degrading challenges mentioning the victim: these collective forms of cyberbullying often involve many participants, sometimes without them being aware of the severity of their actions.

Cyberstalking and digital surveillance

Obsessively following a student's posts to negatively comment on them, monitoring their movements via location stories, massively reporting their account to get it blocked by platforms: these forms of harassment through surveillance and digital sabotage are on the rise among adolescents.

The "pile-on" or collective online harassment

A phenomenon amplified by social networks, the pile-on refers to the situation where content targeting a person goes viral in a subgroup and provokes a massive influx of negative comments, insults, or mockery from a very large number of people, many of whom do not personally know the victim. The feeling of being harassed by the entire world is overwhelming.

4. The platforms used and their specific risks

Understanding the digital platforms used by adolescents is essential for professionals. Each platform has its own codes, features, and risks. The unfamiliarity with these environments is one of the reasons why adults struggle to understand what adolescents describe to them.

5. Why are adolescents particularly vulnerable?

The vulnerability of adolescents to cyberbullying is not a coincidence: it is rooted in the developmental and psychological characteristics of this period of life. Understanding these factors allows professionals to adopt a more empathetic and better-calibrated stance towards the young people they support.

The adolescent brain and emotional regulation

The prefrontal cortex — the seat of emotional control, judgment, and the ability to put things into perspective — is still developing until the mid-twenties. The adolescent has a very reactive amygdala (emotional center) but an immature frontal regulator. In practice, this means that a hurtful message received at 10 PM triggers an intense emotional reaction that an adult would have better resources to temper. The distress of the adolescent in the face of cyberbullying is not an disproportionate reaction: it is a neurobiologically coherent reaction with their stage of development.

Identity in construction and dependence on peer perception

Adolescence is the period of identity construction par excellence. Peer approval plays a structuring role in this. What others think — what they "like," comment on, share — directly contributes to how the adolescent sees themselves. Cyberbullying that targets an adolescent's physical appearance, tastes, or identity therefore affects not only their immediate well-being: it strikes at the heart of the self-construction process, at the very moment when this process is most crucial and most fragile.

The porosity between online life and real life

For the current generation of adolescents — born after 2005 — there is no clear boundary between "online life" and "real life." Friendships, romances, conflicts, and social hierarchies occur simultaneously in person and online. Telling a bullied adolescent to "disconnect" is like telling them to leave their social life. This advice, often given kindly by adults, is experienced as an additional punishment by the victims.

6. Detecting cyberbullying: signals that the school can observe

Even if cyberbullying takes place outside the walls of the establishment, its effects manifest within. Careful observation by professionals remains the main detection method available. These signals should be shared among the various adults on the team to allow for cross-evaluation.

Behavioral signals in class and in the establishment

A student who checks their phone with visible anxiety during breaks or right after class, who shows agitation or emotional distress after looking at their screen, who tries to hide their phone from others or, conversely, completely stops using their phone after being an intensive user: all these behaviors deserve attention.

In class, certain changes can also signal an ongoing cyberbullying situation. A drop in concentration, difficulties in engaging in activities, a gradual withdrawal from participation, or conversely, increased irritability and disproportionate reactions to trivial requests can be the in-person manifestations of emotional exhaustion related to nighttime cyberbullying.

Relational signals in the group

The dynamic of the class group can offer valuable clues. Students who exchange knowing glances upon the arrival of a peer, who seem to share a joke at their expense via their phones during free time, who react to events that the targeted student does not understand: these behaviors can signal the existence of humiliating content circulating online involving one of their peers.

Signals reported by other students

Witnesses of cyberbullying — students who are part of the groups where content circulates, or friends of the victim who see their distress — can sometimes alert an adult, directly or indirectly. These signals deserve to be taken very seriously, even if expressed hesitantly or indirectly ("I’m worried about my friend," "I saw something strange online").

7. The problem of invisibility: what adults do not see

One of the most frustrating specifics of cyberbullying for professionals is its structural invisibility from the school environment. Understanding the mechanisms of this invisibility allows for better responses.

The digital world of teenagers is separate from that of adults

Teenagers and adults do not operate in the same digital spaces. Teachers and school counselors use Facebook, LinkedIn, and professional emails. Teenagers live on TikTok, Snapchat, Discord, and instant messaging. This divergence in usage creates a structural blind spot: the content circulating among students is rarely accessible to the adults in the establishment, except for explicit reporting.

The codes of cyberbullying are opaque to adults

Many forms of cyberbullying use codes, memes, or references that are transparent to peers but opaque to adults. A screenshot that seems innocuous can be deeply humiliating in the context of a closed group. A digital nickname can be a coded insult that only the immediate circle understands the hurtful implications of. Professionals cannot detect what they do not know how to decode.

Shame and minimization of victims

When teenagers who are victims of cyberbullying talk to adults, they often tend to minimize the situation. Several reasons for this: the fear of being perceived as unable to manage their social relationships, the shame related to sometimes intimate content shared without their consent, the fear that the adult will react excessively and make things worse (confiscation of the phone, calling the parents of the bullies, punishments), and the belief — sometimes well-founded — that adults do not really understand the stakes of the digital world.

8. How to intervene effectively from the institution

When a situation of cyberbullying is identified or suspected, the institution's intervention must be structured, quick, and coordinated. Improvisation is the enemy of effectiveness in these situations, which involve significant emotional, relational, and legal stakes.

• Create the conditions for the student to speak. Offer a one-on-one meeting in a neutral and safe space. Start with non-intrusive open-ended questions. Make it clear that you are not there to judge but to help, and that the student will not be penalized for what they share. Do not immediately ask them to show their phone — let them choose what they want to show.
• Document without delay. Write down everything you learn: the reported facts, the platforms involved, the names of the alleged perpetrators, the dates of the incidents, screenshots if the student agrees to share them. This documentation is essential for the continuation of the procedure.
• Report to the harassment referent or management. Do not handle it alone. Immediately inform the resource person at the institution. The situation of cyberbullying must be addressed at the institutional level, not individually.
• Contact 3018 for content removal. 3018 is the national number for combating cyberbullying. Its teams can help obtain the rapid removal of humiliating content from platforms, even in the absence of a criminal complaint. This is often the first urgency — the victim needs to know that the content will disappear.
• Inform and involve families. The parents of the victim must be informed and involved in the response. Those of the alleged perpetrators as well, at a later stage and with caution to avoid retaliation. These meetings should be conducted by an adult trained in these delicate conversations.
• Support the victim in the long term. Immediate intervention is not enough. The victim needs regular follow-up — school nurse, national education psychologist, social worker — and sustainable protection measures within the institution.
• Act on the group. Cyberbullying often involves a significant number of passive or active witnesses. An intervention with the class group, without naming the victim or the perpetrators, on the themes of digital consent and the responsibility of witnesses, is recommended following the situation.

9. Mistakes to avoid during intervention

10. Practical cases: real situations of cyberbullying in middle and high school

11. Build a sustainable digital prevention culture

Intervention after the fact, no matter how well conducted, will never be enough on its own. Effective action against cyberbullying requires a digital prevention culture that is long-lasting and involves the entire school community. This culture cannot be built with just one EMC class per year: it requires regular, coherent, and coordinated actions.

Conditions for effective prevention

Research on cyberbullying prevention programs identifies several conditions for them to be effective. The first is the involvement of the entire educational team, not just a few willing teachers. When all adults in an establishment share the same understanding of the issues and the same response tools, students receive a coherent message and perceive the establishment as a safe environment.

The second condition is working with witnesses. The most effective programs do not focus solely on victims and perpetrators, but also train witnesses — the majority of students — to react protectively rather than passively or as participants. A witness who does not relay humiliating content, who alerts a friend in distress, who seeks out an adult: this behavior is cultivated.

The third condition is ongoing training for professionals. The digital world is evolving rapidly. Platforms change, codes evolve, and new forms of cyberbullying regularly emerge. Initial training, even excellent, must be updated. Teams that train regularly maintain their detection capacity in the face of constantly evolving phenomena.

DYNSEO training as a common foundation for the team

The training Prevent and Act Against School Bullying and Cyberbullying from DYNSEO includes a comprehensive module dedicated to cyberbullying, covering the understanding of platforms and specific forms, the detection of signals even in a context of structural invisibility, appropriate intervention procedures (3018, Pharos, individual interviews), and the establishment of a digital prevention culture within the institution.

Its Qualiopi certification guarantees the quality of the system and allows both public and private institutions to mobilize funds for continuing professional training. It can be organized for the entire educational team in one or two days, depending on the needs and organizational constraints of the institution.

Cyberbullying is a real challenge, but it's a challenge that schools can meet. The tools exist, the protocols are available, the resources are accessible. What is most often lacking is the collective training that allows them to be used coherently, effectively, and confidently. This is exactly what the DYNSEO training aims to provide to your team.