Online Bullying: Survey Finds Out That It Is On The Rise

A new survey conducted by Glamour magazine has found that online bullying is on the rise and is carrying over into people’s lives off-line.

The magazine, in collaboration with SurveyMonkey, conducted an opt-in survey of 1,000 women and 1,000 men. Forty-nine percent of female respondents reported being victimized by another woman’s attacks and 8 percent reported having received death threats. 

Ninety-three percent of women said the online bullying was either getting worse or not lessening.

"On some level, I think that we have come to believe that this is just the price that you pay for living in the fully wired 21st century but it shouldn’t be that way," Cindi Leive, Glamour's editor in chief, said today on ABC News' "Good Morning America." "I think one of the most important things that we saw is that it’s important if you see something, to say something."

"So, if you see somebody ganging up on a woman, or a man for that matter, you don’t have to take on the troll or the attacker, that can actually be risky, but post a simple think like a smiley face emoticon to the woman who’s getting abused or a simple ‘ouch’ just to show, listen, we’ve seen this and we’re watching," she said.

The survey results are reported in the latest issue of the magazine. The issue also includes an interview with Monica Lewinsky.

"Constructive criticism is legitimate, but when it escalates to vitriol, it affects us all, because celebrities and influencers are part of the collective consciousness," Lewinsky told Glamour. "Women need to support other women, not cut them down. And that goes for recognizable women, too."

The survey found that people who have been bullied themselves are more likely to report that they also have been bullies, according to Leive.

"It’s honestly like any other kind of abuse, there’s a cycle," Leive said.

Leive also offered tips for how to deal with bullies. The first option, she said, was to ignore the bully’s comments, but report the bullying if the action rises to a level that is "dangerous or threatening."

Another step recommended by Leive is to block the bully from your feed and adjust the privacy settings on your social media accounts.

Leive also suggested that people create a two-factor authentication log-in to prevent bullies from gaining unauthorized access to their social media accounts, and added that users should chime in with support when they see someone else being bullied online in order to put that bully on notice.

"I think simply saying something like, ‘Please, show some respect,’ if you see this happening to another woman can be really powerful," Leive said. "We all have to stand up for one another."