As you may have heard, online bullying, also known as cyberbullying, is a growing problem in America. Since the advent of social media, this has been on the radar of policymakers, educators, and tech companies. The trend is not new. However, despite the efforts of the aforementioned, it appears that cyberbullying has actually risen over the past few years.

The number of reported cyberbullying incidents increased from 11.5% to 15.3% between 2015 and 2017 according to data provided by the National Center for Education Statistics.

This data is even more alarming when you consider the fact that many school districts, states, and tech companies have instituted policies and practices to prevent or stop cyberbullying.

• School districts have created zero-tolerance policies for cyberbullying.
• States have created laws and tougher penalties for both the offenders and adults who let it happen.
• Tech companies have written code and algorithms to catch, block, or at a minimum allow victims to report cyberbullying.
• Teachers have also started teaching students about the importance of their online behavior through digital citizenship classes in order to address the lack of online education.

However, none of those approaches have been effective enough to drop the number nationally over the observed years. Worse still, many suspects that a great deal of cyberbullying goes unreported as victims often don’t speak out and schools sometimes don’t see it as their problem.

Cyberbullying is an ongoing problem, and it is becoming increasingly clear that schools are not yet equipped to effectively deter or stop the phenomena on a macro level.

Read the full report here.