In many ways Cyberbullying is similar to old face-to-face bullying. There is still a power imbalance and an overwhelming sense of helplessness on the part of the victim.

And yet this newer form of abuse now regarded as far worse than the traditional type.

The term Cyberbullying was first coined by Canadian Bill Belsey to describe ...

"The use of information and communication technologies to support deliberate, repeated, and hostile behaviour by an individual or group, that is intended to harm others."

Some of the reasons that kids consider Cyberbullying to be so bad is that their abuse is often witnessed by a very wide audience, whilst the bully is shielded by the anonymity that the internet offers.

This adds a new dimension to the distress that 24 hours-a-day, 7 days-a-week taunting creates. And sadly, parental ignorance of what children are doing online means that abuse often goes unnoticed.

For example, 13% of Irish 13-14 year olds say they have been bullied on social networking sites (in contrast with 6% who were bullied face-to-face).

This amounts to tens-of-thousands of children who are suffering daily torment, and yet only 1 in 10 victims will inform a parent or trusted adult about it.

It is clear we need to do more to help those in need. For, as we'll see in our article, the cost of ignorance is much too high.

All the statistics and references above, appear in the SelfieCop research report "Selfies & Sexting - the perfect storm" on Selfiecop.com.