Study finds cyberbullying reports among teens increased 40% since 2021

Research published by a team of developmental psychologists has found that reports of cyberbullying among adolescents aged 13 to 17 increased by approximately 40 percent between 2021 and 2024, with the majority of incidents occurring in direct messages and group chats on social media and gaming platforms. The study, which surveyed more than 5,000 young people, identified sustained targeting, exclusion and the sharing of manipulated images as the most common tactics, and found that fewer than one in five victims reported the abuse to a parent or school. The researchers emphasised the need for early detection and intervention systems that do not rely on self-reporting.

Sustained targeting, escalating insults and coordinated exclusion are patterns that automated detection can identify reliably without requiring a young person to self-report. Guardii's anti-cyberbullying module analyses conversational tone, frequency and the involvement of multiple senders over time, flagging hostile or coercive exchanges in real time and surfacing a child under sustained attack to a parent or school safeguarding lead. Operating across Instagram, Snapchat, Discord and other platforms, the system detects the shape and intensity of bullying rather than reading every message, preserving privacy while isolating the conversations that meet operational thresholds for harm. By providing visibility into an environment that has historically been invisible to adults, and by enabling intervention before a young person reaches the crisis point documented in the research, targeted detection closes the gap between a safeguarding concern and the capacity to act on it.