Keywords

1 Introduction

Internet has been disseminated rapidly since the late 1990s in Asian countries. Currently, China has the greatest number of Internet users, and the majority of population in other eastern countries are Internet users: South Korea (92.4 %), Japan (86.2 %), Taiwan (80.0 %), and Hong Kong (80.9 %; Source: www.internetworldstats.com/stats3.htm). The great increase of Internet use and development of information and communication technology (ICT) had brought many benefits but also caused unexpected results. People have begun to be suffering from threatening, malicious images, or messages at anytime and anywhere. In South Korea , in the early 2000s, celebrities were targets for the malicious behaviors in cyberspace, and these were regarded as one of the main reasons of suicides of a couple of celebrities (i.e., Jin-sil Choi, Yuni). A public concern for cyberbullying was triggered by a middle school boy’s suicide in 2011 in South Korea; a pupil committed suicide after serious school bullying including cyberbullying. The boy had been hit, insulted, extorted, and had been even subjected to waterboarding. This occurred repeatedly and continued anywhere through his mobile phone. This is not restricted to South Korea but is also noted, for example, in Japan. This chapter illuminates studies on cyberbullying in Far Eastern countries, focusing on studies in South Korea and other countries (i.e., China, Hong Kong, Japan, and Taiwan).

2 Definition of Bullying and Cyberbullying

In some countries, there exist clear terms for cyberbullying. In South Korea, several terms are used to indicate bullying-like behaviors : hakkyo-pokryuk (school violence), wang-ta, gipdan-ttadolim (group isolation), and gipdan-gorophim (group harassment or group bullying). These terms are often used interchangeably, although there are some differences in the types of aggression each term includes (Lee et al. 2012). Gipdan-ttadolim and gipdan-gorophim imply group aggressive behaviors to one person used frequently in the late 1990s to the early 2000s. Recently, the term hakkyo-pokryuk has been mainly used as it indicates a wide range of aggressive behaviors, which happen among pupils such as physical attack, name-calling, gipdan-ttadolim, extortion of money, and sexual abuse. Wang-ta is a slang term emerged from pupils in the late 1990s, which means socially excluded person or excluding behavior. For terms for cyberbullying, cybergorophim (cyber harassment), cyberttadolim (cyber isolation), cyberpokryuk (cyber violence) , and cyber wang-ta are used. Sometimes the English term cyberbullying is directly used. Many recent studies on cyberbullying in South Korea tend to use the term cyberpokryuk to indicate the corresponding phenomena to cyberbullying in Western cultures.

Although there is no consensus on the definition of cyberbullying in South Korea , researchers generally agreed that cyberpokryuk (cyber violence) is an individual’s harmful behavior conducted by electronic communication equipment to (a) specified or unspecified individual(s). Hakkyo-pokryuk Prevention and Counterplan Act (2012.4.1) defines cyberttadolim as “the behaviors affecting a pupil’s distress; a pupil/pupils aggress(es) other pupil(s) repeatedly, consistently or spread(s) personal- or false information using information technology equipment such as Internet or mobile phone.”

In Japan, the term ijime has been used to indicate a corresponding phenomenon to bullying in Western cultures. Ijime is strongly emphasized on group interaction process and victim’s position in a group. It includes several types of aggressive behavior, such as name calling, teasing, mobbing, and excluding, and the victim is completely isolated in the group (Morita 1999). The term netto ijime can be a corresponding phenomenon to cyberbullying. This is used to indicate abusive use of mobile text messages and Internet sites or blogs (Toivonen and Imoto 2012).

In Taiwan, there was no clear term for indicating bullying behavior. The terms bullying and cyberbullying are not frequently used in Chinese culture, and even the direct translation of the world bullying (ba-lin) is not often used either (Huang and Chou 2010).

There are clear terms for indicating cyberbullying in South Korea and Japan. The meaning of the terms in both countries are common in respect of emphasizing the psychological effect on victims and victim’s position, which are generally not considered in the definition of bullying in Western cultures. Apart from South Korea and Japan, in other Asian countries such as Taiwan and China few clear terms are known; however, the bullying phenomenon clearly exists in those countries as well.

3 Types of Cyberbullying

There were some differences in the types of cyberbullying investigated across studies. However, across cultures, studies are generally common in terms of some forms: including sending insulting contents (i.e., messages/text/images), sending sexual contents (sexting), misuse others’ private information/profile, and spreading rumors or messages for defamation.

Among South Korean studies, cyberbullying was generally categorized by behavior rather than the media used for it. It was generally examined in terms of cybermoyok/bibang (insults); cybermyungye-hweson (defamation); cyberstalking; cybersungpokryuk (sexting); gaeinjungbo-youchul (personal information drain); cybergangyo (coercion); and cyberttadolim (exclusion), cybergorophim (harassment), or cyber wang-ta .

In Taiwan, Huang and Chou (2010) distinguished the types of cyberbullying by way of media used: e-mails, instant messengers, chat rooms, online polls, web forums, weblogs, and cell phone messages. They investigated whether—through those media—pupils have experienced threats, harassment, humiliation, insults, and any other emotional put-downs by means of words, taking pictures, “Peeping Tom” videos, or any combination of digital contents.

Some types of cyberbullying (i.e., cyber insults, cyberstalking, sexting, humiliation, harassment, etc.) are similar to or almost the same as with those of Western cultures. However, there is also a distinctive cyberbullying behavior. In South Korea, cybergangyo, often called “Wi-Fi-shuttle” may be exclusive types. Cybergangyo indicates that a bully compels a victim to do/deliver whatever he/she wants. The victim buys what the bully demands and delivers to him/her. For example, the victim downloads charged data, game money, or game items on his mobile (the cost will be charged on his/her mobile fare) and sends the resources to the bully. Pupils usually called this Wi-Fi shuttle as this was executed by mobile or wireless service. If this is related to specific Internet game items, they call it “game shuttle.” In fact, the boy introduced at the beginning of this chapter was a victim of this. Furthermore, this type of cyberbullying is likely to be deeply involved in bullying in school. A pupil/pupils target(s) the other pupil who is socially or physically weak in school (and the victim is often wang-ta) and use(s) him/her to obtain the materials he/she wants.

4 Incidence of Cyberbullying

Studies showed a wide range of percentages for prevalence of cyberbullying from 7 to 70 % across countries. The variety of prevalence resulted from differences of types of cyberbullying or a reference period investigated across studies.

4.1 Doing Cyberbullying

A global study, which was conducted by Microsoft Corporation, provides useful information. Microsoft surveyed cyberbullying of youths aged 8–17 in 25 countries, including European, American, and some Asian countries (e.g., China, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore).

The Microsoft study (2012) showed that 9 % of youth in Japan reported cyberbullying, followed by 5 % of youths in UAE. The most frequent type of cyberbullying was “made fun of or teased” (10 %), followed by “mean or unfriendly treatment” (7 %), and “called mean names” (6 %) in Japan (Microsoft 2012).

Although there is low prevalence of cyberbullying in Japan, it has been slowly increasing. Of the total bullying incidences in 2013, cyberbullying amounted to 4.7 % —an increase of 4 % compared with the previous year (JapanTimes, 19 January 2015). In contrast to Japan, China showed the highest rate (58 %) of cyberbullying among 25 countries (Microsoft 2012). The most frequent type of cyberbullying was “called mean names” (48 %) followed by “made fun of or teased” (38 %) and “mean or unfriendly treatment” (28 %) in China (Microsoft 2012).

In South Korea, the prevalence of cyberbullying varied across studies between 7 and 40 %. Hwang et al. (2013) investigated the incidence of cyberpokryuk among 1500 elementary , middle, and high school pupils across national regions in South Korea . They offered the definition of each type of cyberpokryuk (cyber verbal violence, cyber defamation, cyber stalking, cyber sexual abuse, personal information drain, and cyber bullying (ttodolim)) and asked pupils’ experiences for the last 1 year. The results indicated that 29.2 % of the pupils had experiences of doing cyberpokryuk.

In addition, the National Information Society Agency (NIA 2013) in South Korea investigated cyberbullying at the national level. They surveyed 11,956 elementary (fifth and sixth graders, aged 11–12), middle, and high school pupils (aged 13–18). Figure 8.1 indicates the incidence of cyberbullying by its type; it shows that relational aggression (cyberbaejae (exclusion)) was most common, and verbal aggression (cyberbibang (insults)) showed slightly less than that.

Fig. 8.1
figure 1

Percentage of doing cyberbullying by its type. (Adapted from NIA 2013). Imagebullying means posting or spreading someone’s photos or video clips to offend others. Cybergamgeum indicates cyber jail, which confines someone in chat rooms of the Internet or a smartphone to swear at or insult him/her. Anti-café is an Internet community which is built up for excluding and slandering a particular person. Cyber wang-ta play is that several people make someone wang-ta (socially excluded person) using insulting, swearing, or denigrating him/her in cyberspace, and this is regarded as a play

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For the media for cyberbullying, in South Korea, cyberbullying was commonly conducted through messenger (kakaotalk, mypeople, line, etc.), cyber community (anti-café, social club), and social networking service (SNS; Facebook, Twitter, blogs, etc.; Hwang et al. 2013). In addition, for means of cyberbullying, mobile phone (58.5 %) was the most common (Lee et al. 2013).

In Hong Kong, Wong et al. (2014) reported that less than one third of secondary adolescents showed cyberbullying experiences for the last 30 days. They reported that 31.5 % of respondents had cyberbullying experiences; 13 % had once, 11 % of them had two to four times, and 7 % had more than five times. Table 8.1 indicates the percentage by types of cyberbullying they investigated.

Table 8.1 Percentages of doing cyberbullying among Hong Kong adolescents by its type (total 1917 respondents, multiple answers were possible). (Adapted from Wong et al. 2014, p. 137)
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Interestingly, engaging social groups to insult another person was most common, which may reflect group aggressive behavior in collectivistic cultures. Another study in Hong Kong showed a similar result; among Hong Kong university students, the most frequent form of cyberbullying was “deliberately ignoring or excluding someone from an online activity” (47.9 %), followed by “disseminating private information/messages or posting images/videos without permission” (24.7 %; Xiao and Wong 2013).

A study in Taiwan showed that threatening or harassing (20.4 %) was the most common type, followed by making jokes (18.2 %) and spreading rumors (12.2 %; Huang and Chou 2010).

Udris (2014) surveyed cyberbullying of 877 adolescents aged 15–19 in Japan. The results showed that 7.9 % of the pupils had experiences of cyberbullying, which is a slightly lower rate than that in the Microsoft study. The prevalence decreased to 2.9 % when then they were asked about cyberbullying in the last 6 months. Table 8.2 indicates percentages of cyberbullying by its time and reference period. The most frequent type of cyberbullying was “slander someone online,” which decreased to less than half when the reference period of cyberbullying was restricted into the recent 6 months.

Table 8.2 Percentages of cyberbullying by reference period. (Exerted and adapted from Udris 2014, p. 256)
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Also, the middle or high school pupils were more likely than elementary school pupils to be involved in cyberbullying. In South Korea, elementary school pupils (7 %) showed lowest rates, and middle school pupils (39 %) and high school pupils (38.4 %) showed much higher experiences of it (Hwang et al. 2013). Similarly, in Japan, high school pupils (19.7 %) were more likely than elementary school pupils (1.4 %) to cyberbully (JapanTimes, 2015.1.19). Similarly, Suzuki et al. (2012) reported that high school pupils showed higher means for cyberbullying than elementary or secondary school pupils in Japan.

Considering the results across the studies, verbal insults or threatening was one of the most common forms across countries. Furthermore, social exclusion or ignoring was the most frequent type in some studies both in South Korea and Hong Kong.

4.2 Receiving Cyberbullying

In South Korea, Hwang et al. (2013) reported that 30.3 % of pupils received cyberpokryuk; about 40 % of middle and high school pupils had cybervictim experiences during the recent 1 year, whereas only 7.4 % of elementary school pupils had such experiences. Jung et al. (2011) reported that one third (34 %) of elementary school pupils had experience of receiving cyberpokryuk ; upper graders aged 10–12 (49.3 %) had received cyberpokryuk three times more than lower graders aged 7–9 (13.0 %).

Figure 8.2 indicates the percentages of receiving cyberbullying by its type (NIA 2013). The most common type of receiving cyberbullying was cyberbibang (insults), followed cyberbaejae (exclusion).

Fig. 8.2
figure 2

Percentage of receiving cyberporyuk by its type. (Adapted from NIA 2013)

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Huang and Chou (2010) showed that junior high school pupils in Taiwan received threatening or harassing most commonly (34.9 %), followed by making jokes (32.3 %) and spreading rumors (25.2 %).

In Hong Kong, 23 % of the students replied that they had cybervictim experiences in the last 30 days (12.2 % had one time and 10.8 % had two to four times; Wong et al. 2014). The most common type of cyberbullying was using others’ private photos or videos without permission (“had your own or a family member’s photographs or videos uploaded to the Internet without your permission”:12.5 %). “Received annoying or vulgar messages through online communication tools such as email or online messaging” was the second highest (12.1 %).

Among Hong Kong university students, 71.9 % of respondents had experience of being cybervictims, and 51.7 % of respondents had experience of being both cyberbullies and cybervictims (Xiao and Wong 2013). The most frequent form of cybervictimization was “disseminating private information/messages or posting images/videos without permission,” which is consistent with the results of Wong et al. (2014). Table 8.3 indicates the percentages of receiving cyberbullying by its type among university students in Hong Kong.

Table 8.3 Percentages of receiving cyberbullying among university students in Hong Kong by its type. (Adapted from Xiao and Wong 2013, p. 48)
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Interestingly, in a Hong Kong sample, the most common type of cyberbullying was “deliberately ignoring or excluding someone from an online activity„ whereas the most common type of cybervictimization was “disseminating private information/messages or posting images/videos without permission” (43.7 %).

This may reflect that group cyberaggression such as excluding someone online might have been perpetrated on a few targeted pupils. While there might be relatively lower number of pupils who send threatening messages, images, or videos, they might have done these to a number of victims (less targeted than exclusion).

In the Microsoft study (2012), Japan showed the second lowest rate of receiving cyberbullying (17 %), following UAE (7 %), and China showed the highest cybervictimization rate (70 %).

The high prevalence of cyberbullying in the Microsoft study may be because there was no time reference, and the study included a wide range of ages (8–17 years). Studies which included the youth from upper elementary to high school or those older than 10 years showed lower prevalence than this.

For the type of cybervictimization, spreading, private information was most common in Hong Kong, and verbal threatening or insults were most frequent both in South Korea and Taiwan.

4.3 Sex Differences

Generally, boys were more likely than girls to be both cyberbullies and cybervictims across countries: South Korea (Hwang et al. 2013; NIA 2013), Taiwan (Huang and Chou 2010; Wong et al. 2014), and Japan (Microsoft 2012). However, in relational type of cyberbullying (i.e., cyberexclusion) , there were more girls than boys involved in it.

For cyberbullying, in South Korea , boys were generally more likely than girls to do cyberpokryuk (Jung et al. 2011; Lee et al. 2013; Shin and Ahn 2013). More boys than girls were involved in cyber verbal violence, cyber defamation, cyber stalking, cyber sexual abuse, and personal information drain, whereas girls were more likely than boys to do cyberttadolim (Hwang et al. 2013). NIA (2013) also showed that girls (61 %) were generally more likely than boys (39 %) to be cyberbullies only in cyberexclusion (called cyberbaejae).

In Hong Kong, there were more boy perpetrators across all types of cyberbullying behavior, except for one case; there were more female than male students in the item “involved in social groups whose purpose was to tease or insult another person on the internet” (Wong et al. 2014). Inconsistently, another study in Hong Kong showed that male students were less likely than female students to engage in cyberbullying (Xiao and Wong 2013).

For cybervictimization, boys were more likely than girls to receive cyberbullying, but this varies by types of cyberbullying. In South Korea, boys were more likely than girls to be cybervictims in cyber verbal violence, cyber defamation, and personal information drain, but in cyber sexual abuse, girls were more likely than boys to be victims at middle and high school levels (Hwang et al. 2013).

Also, in some types of cyberbullying, girls were more likely than boys to be cybervictims (i.e., sexting, cyberexclusion, anti-café, cyber wang-ta play; NIA 2013) . Particularly, cyberexclusion showed the biggest sex differences: The victims in cyberexclusion were more girls (60.8 %) than boys (39.2 %).

Similar to South Korea, a study in Hong Kong showed that there were more boys than girls in cybervictimization (Wong et al. 2014). However, in Japan, girls (21 %) tended to be more cyberbullied than boys (12 %; Microsoft 2012). In China, girls and boys showed similar rates of receiving cyberbullying, although girls (71 %) showed slightly higher rates than boys (69 %; Microsoft 2012).

Sex differences of cyberbullying or cybervictimization are not consistent across studies; boys are more likely than girls to be both cyberbullies and cybervictims in South Korea or Hong Kong, but this is not noted in studies from China or Japan. Also, girls are more likely than boys to be involved in relational cyber aggression such as cyberexclusion even if boys were more likely to be cybervictimized in South Korea.

5 Awareness of Cyberbullies

Many pupils were aware of the names of cyberbullies. In South Korea, nearly or more than half of the respondents perceived who cyberbullies were. Forty-three percent of victims were aware of cyberbullies; they were cyberbullied by their peer(s) in the same school (Lee et al. 2013). Also, more than half of the cyberbullies reported that they did cyber pokryuk to a pupil/pupils whom they knew in their schools (Hwang et al. 2013); 54.3 % of elementary school pupils, 52.3 % of middle school pupils, and 64.6 % of high school pupils. Similarly, Lee et al. (2013) reported that 55.4 % of cyberbullies chose the target from the same school in South Korea . This is more so in the Taiwanese sample, many adolescents perceived who the cyberbullies are; 74.9 % of victims and 57.9 % of bystanders were aware of bullies’ identity (Huang and Chou 2010).

Reflecting the findings, cyberbullies tend not to try to hide or disguise themselves in cyberspace. Authors suggested that it might be because the account names were exposed when users logged in (Huang and Chou 2010). Alternatively, it may reflect that face-to-face bullying may be continued in cyberspace to the same pupils.

6 Motivations for Cyberbullying

In South Korea, “for fun” and “upset with the victim” were most frequent answers for the reason for doing cyberpokryuk (Hwang et al. 2013; NIA 2013). The most common reasons were somewhat different by school levels. Among elementary school pupils, “for fun” was the highest (elementary: 45.7 %, middle: 29.7 %, high: 33.3 %), but in older ages such as middle and high school pupils, “upset with the victim” was most common (elementary: 34.3 %, middle: 68.2 %, high: 64.1 %; Hwang et al. 2013). Additionally, “no reason” (elementary: 22.9 %, middle: 11.8 %, high: 11.5 %) and “getting along with friends” (elementary: 20.0 %, middle: 5.6 %, high: 12.5 %) were also frequent responses (Hwang et al. 2013).

7 Responses After Being a Cybervictim or Witnessing Cybervictimization

Passive reactions such as “no response” or “ignoring the cyberbullying” were very common across cultures. In South Korea, “get back in the same way”(39.4 %) was the most common answer as a response after being cyberbullied, followed by “demand deletion or correction of the message to the cyberbully (ies)” (17.6 %) and “claiming apologies” (17.1 %). There was also a high frequency who replied “no response” (36.5 %; Jung et al. 2011).

By school levels, mid or late adolescents chose a more direct solution by confronting the cyberbullies; in South Korea, middle school pupils (50.3 %) and high school pupils (40.9 %) were more likely than elementary school pupils (29.7 %) to demand the cyberbully (ies) to delete or correct the harmful writing or message (Hwang et al. 2013). Younger pupils tended to report and ask help from others; “Telling friends” (elementary: 35.1 %, middle: 27.4 %, high: 22.2 %) and “telling parents/families” (elementary: 24.3 %, middle: 16.8 %, high: 6.4 %; Hwang et al. 2013). However, among the responses of asking help from someone, “telling school teacher” (elementary: 8.1 %, middle: 9.1 %, high: 4.9 %) showed low percentages in relation to telling friends or parents/families (Hwang et al. 2013). Reporting to a legal or formal institution was less common than other ways of reporting. “Reporting police, Weecentre (bullying intervention centre in South Korea), calling 117, or cyber bureau of national police” showed the least frequent responses (elementary: 5.4 %, middle: 7.1 %, high: 4.4 %; Hwang et al. 2013).

Forty-two percent of pupils who received cyberpokryuk reported that they did not do anything because “it may be not helpful” (64.4 %); particularly, elementary school pupils were afraid of being isolated more seriously after reporting the incident (28.6 %; Hwang et al. 2013).

In Taiwan, a lot of cybervictims (78.4 %) reported their cybervictimization to someone: 33.4 % of them reported to classmates, 16.1 % to siblings, 11.6 % to parents, and only 5.9 % of them told teachers (Huang and Chou 2010). Similar to South Korea , Taiwanese adolescents’ common reasons for not reporting were “being afraid of getting into trouble” and “feeling a sense of uselessness in looking to adults for assistant” (Huang and Chou 2010).

In Hong Kong, “withdrawal or avoidance” (i.e., “I can tolerate although I am not happy”) was the most common response, followed by “passive responses” (i.e., “delete the webpages or messages”) and “take revenge” (i.e., “take revenge on the person who is responsible for the bully”). Active responses (i.e., “inform family, teachers, or social worker”) were the lowest (Wong et al. 2014).

Taking no action against cyberbullying is a common response among bystanders. In South Korea, about 37 % of middle and high school pupils and 12.6 % of elementary school pupils had experience of witnessing cyberpokryuk (Hwang et al. 2013). Almost half of them (48.6 %) did not do anything because they thought that “it is nothing” (45.6 %). Among younger pupils (i.e., elementary school pupils), “don’t know what to do” is a common reason, whereas among older pupils (i.e., middle and high school pupils), “it is nothing” was the most common reason (Hwang et al. 2013).

In Taiwan, more than half of the pupils witnessed cyberbullying: making jokes (64.4 %) and threatening or harassing (63.5 %) were commonly witnessed, followed by spreading rumors (60.9 %; Huang and Chou 2010). However, 58.7 % of the bystanders did not report bullying to anyone; they tended to think it as neither their business nor their responsibility. Some of them even suggested that reporting bullying which did not happen to themselves means involvement in others’ privacies (Huang and Chou 2010). This may indicate serious moral disengagement about bullying behavior.

Many pupils who are victimized or witnessed cyberbullying in Taiwan and South Korea seem to be afraid of the bully’s revenge or threat and unsure of adults’ help for their cyberbullying experiences. This may explain why passive responses were common after cybervictimization.

8 Effective Coping Strategies

In South Korea, across school levels, “telling friends” was most helpful for stopping cyberbullying (elementary: 69.2 %, middle: 75.9 %, high: 60.0 %), followed by “telling parents, siblings, families.„Around half of the pupils who asked cyberbullies to “delete or correct the messages” found this strategy helpful (elementary: 45.5 %, middle: 55.6 %, and high: 48.2 %). “Telling teachers” was fully useful (100 %) among elementary school pupils, but it was not among older pupils (38.9 % in middle and 30.0 % in high school pupils thought it as useful; Hwang et al. 2013).

Half of the elementary school pupils who reported the incidents to the police, Weecentre, 117, or cyber bureau of national police thought it as helpful, and 42.9 % of middle school pupils and 44.4 % of high school pupils reported this as effective (Hwang et al. 2013).

9 Related Variables

9.1 Psychological Variables

Studies reported that psychological variables such as aggression, impulsiveness, self-control, self-esteem, or guilty feeling were involved in cyberbullying, and both cyberbullies and cybervictims suffered from a lower level of psychological well-being.

Aggressive traits of pupils positively predicted cyberbullying behavior. In South Korea, boys’ aggressiveness predicted cyberbullying but not girls’ (Kim and Yoon 2012a). Also, aggression of both boys and girls showed positive correlation with cyberbullying behavior (Nam and Kwon 2013; NIA 2013; Sung et al. 2016). Impulsiveness (Nam and Kwon 2013) and low self-control ability (NIA 2013) influenced cyberbullying behavior. Upper elementary pupils (aged 11–12) who had experiences of cybergorophim showed lower self-esteem than pupils who did not (Oh 2011). Also, awareness of the guilt of cyberbullying negatively predicted cyberbullying behavior (Nam and Kwon 2013).

Xiao and Wong (2013) studied personal and environmental factors affecting cyberbullying among 288 university students in Hong Kong. They found that Internet self-efficacy and motivation were all significantly related to cyberbullying behavior (Xiao and Wong 2013). High level of Internet self-efficacy is related to cyberbullying behavior. Also, motivation for cyberbullying such as wanting to obtain power, attention, or peer approval predicted cyberbullying behavior. Similarly, cyberbullying behavior was negatively correlated to self-efficacy, empathy, and psychosocial well-being in Hong Kong (i.e., overall happiness and relationships with family, peers, and teachers; Wong et al. 2014).

South Korean studies showed that cybervictim experiences predicted internalizing (i.e., depressive symptom) and externalizing problems (i.e., aggressive traits; Oh 2013; Kim 2013). Low level of self-control was related to cybervictim experiences (NIA 2013). Also, cybervictim experiences increased the tendency of suicidal thinking (Seo and Cho 2013).

9.2 Social Variables (Parents/Schools)

Parents and school variables were related to cyberbullying across studies. Relationships between adolescents and parents were involved in adolescents’ cyberbullying behaviors. Adolescents’ attachment to their parents predicted cyberbullying behavior. In South Korea, adolescents who are less attached to their parents are more likely to do cyberbullying (Sung et al. 2006). Also, witnessing parental violence and receiving abusive experiences from parents are positively related to cyberbullying behavior (Kim and Yoon 2012a).

An individual’s adaptation to schools was related to cyberbullying. In South Korea, low level of school satisfaction was associated with cyberbullying (NIA 2013). In the same line with this, the sense of belonging to school and harmonious school was negatively correlated to cyberbullying in Hong Kong (Wong et al. 2014).

Parental support is useful for preventing cyberbullying. Yang et al. (2014) investigated the role of parental support to high school pupils’ flow to Internet in China. They surveyed 1203 high school pupils and found that parental support decreased the pupils’ Internet addiction and increased exploratory behavior. This supportive parental attention leads children’s Internet usage to a healthy way.

Cybervictim experiences were related to parental attention and degree of parental control to their children’s Internet usage; these were negatively related to children’s low level of cybervictim experiences (Cho 2013). Parent–child communication skills negatively predicted adolescents’ cyber delinquency, and authoritarian or controlling parental attitude were related to it in South Korea (Kim 2014).

Having delinquent peers and positive attitudes toward cyberbullying were associated with cyberbullying. In South Korea, having or contacting delinquent peers was a significant factor for cyberbullying behaviors (Kim 2013; Nam and Jang 2011). Lee and Jeong (2014) investigated factors which may predict willingness for cyberbullying behavior among 514 middle and high school pupils in South Korea . They found that having delinquent peers and positive subjective norms of cyberbullying (e.g., how other people perceive my cyberbullying) predicted willingness to cyberbullying behavior. Consistently, an individual’s social norm related to cyberbullying was a significant predictor, which increased the likelihood of cyberbullying behavior in Hong Kong. University students in Hong Kong who had positive normative beliefs about cyberbullying behavior (i.e., they believed that people who were important to them approved the behavior) were more likely to adopt it (Xiao and Wong 2013).

Psychological and social factors such as parent/peer influence are related to cyberbullying in South Korea or Hong Kong; however, this should be carefully interpreted as many of them generally do not mean causal relationships, except for a few studies. Longitudinal studies are needed for examining variables influencing cyberbullying.

10 Relationships Between Traditional Bullying and Cyberbullying

Bully or victim experiences in traditional bullying are related to cyberbullying. Many studies (e.g., Cho 2013; Ryu 2013; Sung et al. 2006; Wong et al. 2014) indicated strong relationships between a bully in cyberspace and a victim in traditional bullying.

In South Korea, Ryu (2013) examined 1088 middle and high school pupils’ cyberbullying experiences in relation to their traditional school bullying experiences. The author indicated that cyberbullying experiences are positively correlated both to victim’s and bully’s experience of traditional bullying. Also, in Hong Kong cyberbullying behavior was positively related to traditional bullying, traditional victim, and cybervictim experiences. (Wong et al. 2014).

In South Korea cybervictim experiences were predicted by bully or victim experiences in traditional bullying among adolescents (Cho 2013). There were significant relationships between gipdan-ttadolim (group isolation) and cyberbullying. Both bullies and victims of gipdan-ttdolim were more likely than non-victims to cyberbully or be a cybervictim (Lee et al. 2013).

In addition, being a cybervictim was predicted by being a cyberbully or traditional victim in the Hong Kong sample. (Xiao and Wong 2013). However, traditional bullying behavior did not predict cyberbullying behavior in Hong Kong (Wong et al. 2014).

The relationship between traditional bullying and cyberbullying may reflect that victimization in school could continue in cyberspace, and cyberbullying can influence the cybervictim. However, the findings are dependent on correlation; only a few studies showed cause and effect relationships. Further longitudinal studies are needed to explain the relationships.

11 Perspectives to Cyberbullying

Studies about perception of cyberbullying are very lacking. Only a few studies investigated pupils’ sense of ethics in cyberspace or guilty consciousness of cyberbullying. In South Korea, pupils who are more tolerant to violence tend to cyberbully (Kim and Yoon 2012a). Also, victim and cybervictim experiences increase tolerance of violence, which positively influenced cyberbullying behavior (Kim and Yoon 2012b). Some pupils justify their cyberbullying behavior. Lee et al. (2013) indicated that middle school pupils justified their bad reply on the Internet: They perceived that bad replies written by themselves were less problematic than those written to themselves.

Many pupils did not show guilt for the cyberbullying behavior. In South Korea , elementary school pupils showed a high percentage of “I don’t feel it as fault because I have done it for fun” (25.7 %). “Sorry for the person” and “regret” were also common feelings after cyberpokryuk among pupils, ranging from 22.9 to 29.7 % (Hwang et al. 2013).

Moral insensitivity or indifference to cyberbullying tends to increase as pupils grow older. In South Korea, “don’t feel anything” was also a common answer for cyberpokryuk, which was higher in older pupils: middle school pupils (28.7 %), high school pupils (24.0 %), and elementary school pupils (20.0 %; Hwang et al. 2013). In South Korea, many pupils (92.8 %) were aware of the legal punishment for cyberbullying (Lee et al. 2013). Likewise, most middle and high school pupils (92 %) perceived legal punishment for cyberpokryuk, and 67.8 % of elementary school pupils knew about this. Girls were more likely than boys to be aware of this (Hwang et al. 2013).

Pupils’ moral or ethical sensitivity was related to cyberbullying. In South Korea, Sung et al. (2006) reported that cyberbullying experiences were negatively predicted by the sense of ethics of information communication and experiences of punishment.

Teachers’ perception of cyberbullying plays an important role in cyberbullying. In Japan, Kumazaki et al. (2012) investigated the impact of teachers’ instructions on cyberbullying and school bullying. Teachers were asked about their instructions of cyberbullying, and students were requested to share their experience of cyberbullying for the past month. The results showed that “teachers’ immediate reaction to a bully was effective to decrease cyberbullying.” Also, classrooms in which teachers tell the entire class that bullying is not acceptable did not reduce cyberbullying.

In contrast, those cases in which teachers tell the entire class that the teacher is in charge of bullying other students showed a decrease in cyberbullying. This reflects that confirming that the teacher is responsible and emphasizing supportive attitude toward cyberbullying was more powerful for intervening cyberbullying than simply telling about prohibition of cyberbullying. At the elementary school level, there were more significant differences in cyberbullying and bullying incidence than at middle school levels, depending on teachers’ active strategies. This implies that if intervention should be started at early stages, it may be more influential to prevent cyberbullying.

12 Prevention and Intervention

Studies or programs for prevention or intervention of cyberbullying have started since around 2010. Across cultures, these were less likely to be studied in comparison with the prevalence of cyberbullying. In Japan, only 9 % of schools had formal written policies for cyberbullying, and 28 % of schools performed education for it (Microsoft 2012). Also, a specialized legal system of cyberbullying was very lacking.

In Taiwan, the Ministry of Education provides definition, guidelines, and information about the procedure to prevent and stop bullying through “Regulations on the prevention of school bullying.” Although there is no anti-cyberbullying legislation in Taiwan, this provides a variety of online resources for students, parents, and teachers (The Taiwan Ministry of Education cited in Bhat et al. 2013).

In South Korea, the hakkyo-pokryuk Prevention and Intervention Act from 2012 indicates that schools must form a hakkyo-pokryuk committee if an incidence of hakkyo-pokryuk is reported: The committee consists of experts from several areas (i.e., teachers, judges, lawyers, or medical doctors) and parents. The committee decides on actions for stopping bullying: protection for victim, punishment to bully, conciliation between victim and bully, and forcing intervention program for the bully and bully’s parents, etc.

Websites managed by governmental institutions were created to take immediate action on cyberbullying incidences. In South Korea, the Ministry of Education established an anti-bullying website called stopbullying in 2012 (http://www.stopbullying.or.kr). This guarantees users’ anonymity; thus, an individual can report their victimization without worrying about revealing their status or position. They can call 117 or ask for help by accessing the website or sending a mobile text message. The person then would be helped and provided with counselling service and coping strategies.

Educating netiquettes and forming ethical or moral culture in the use of Internet or SNS have been emphasized. In South Korea , Korea Internet Security Agency (KISA) established a website (https://www.iculture.or.kr) to foster sensitivity of information ethics and create a healthy and beneficial Internet culture. This provides information on the usage of Internet and SNS and varied educational guidelines for elementary, middle, and high school levels. In Japan, Kumazaki et al. (2011) showed the moderating effects of netiquettes on cyberbullying: Pupils who had a high level of netiquettes did not increase the frequencies of cyberbullying even if the use of technology was increased.

Repeated warning can be effective to prevent cyberbullying. In Japan, Yasuda (2010) conducted a prevention program for cyberbullying using a leaflet. The researcher pointed out that students do not perceive that mobile phone and Internet can be strong weapons. Students can learn to understand the information society and many social factors consisting of it; their behavior can be affected by other social factors (other person) which urge them to behave with responsibility in cyberspace. The author developed a leaflet program: Homeroom teachers distributed leaflets every morning, and it took only 1 min to read them. The leaflet cautions students not to cyberbully and indicates the safe usage of technology or technology information. After students have read the leaflet, they pass it to their parents at home. In Yasuda’s (2010) study, the school practiced this for 3 years, and the results showed that it was highly effective to decrease problems related to mobile phone or Internet in school. Also, 73 % of guardians thought that school guidance using leaflets was useful (Yasuda 2010).

A program using peer support system was developed in South Korea . NIA in South Korea operated programs for information ethics education. Volunteer teachers are trained and equipped with knowledge on cyberbullying and the need of prevention . They then organize a club consisting of pupils called areumnuri-jikimi. This consists of 30–40 pupil volunteers; they learn about cyberbullying and their responsibility for preventing it by the trained teachers. After training, they begin to work in various ways in order to create a healthy culture in cyberspace. They pass on their knowledge on cyberbullying and conduct a campaign for right Internet use.

Some web sites for prevention of cyberbullying or prevention programs in South Korea provide very useful information, but the effectiveness of those programs has not been evaluated yet.

13 Conclusion

This chapter has reviewed studies on cyberbullying in Asian cultures . Across cultures, there were common aspects such as the tendency of sex differences in prevalence and type of cyberbullying that were investigated. Interestingly, group cyber aggression such as engaging in social groups to tease someone or excluding one person in cyberspace was the most common type: Cyberexclusion was one of the most common forms in Hong Kong and South Korea. Sex differences in cyberbullying and cybervictimization were inconsistent across countries. It would be interesting to examine the main types of cyberbullying between Western and Eastern cultures in terms of individualism–collectivism dimension.

In comparison with studies about prevalence, there is a serious lack of studies on pupils’ or teachers’ attitudes toward cyberbullying. The findings of pupils’ indifference to cyberbullying occurring to others give important points for prevention strategies. That is, responsibility for and attention to others’ well-being could be important factors to prevent cyberbullying, which is related to morality. Therefore, a critical issue to decrease cyberbullying is to increase sensitivity to morality of doing cyberbullying.

The ethical concept of technology had not been required when pupils started to use ICT. Pupils had learned only those skills of ICT which were required for their needs and may not have even perceived why ethical attitudes are needed when they use their own media (mobile, computer, etc). Emphasizing ethics in cyberspace and increasing moral sensitivity and responsibility in cyber behavior are necessary for preventing cyberbullying. Some web sites in South Korea and a prevention program using leaflets in Japan provide good examples for this.

Research on cyberbullying among Far Eastern Asian countries is encouraging; however, there remain many further steps to go. Many studies focused on the frequency or prevalence of cyberbullying; a qualitative approach could be useful to illuminate pupils’ motivation of cyberbullying. Also, studies for developing prevention/intervention programs and examining the effects of them are needed. In addition, communal efforts in family, school, and governmental levels should be consistently provided for preventing and intervening with cyberbullying.