Bystanders' indifference applies to online bullying too

A new study has revealed that most of the bystanders don't try to stop online bullies.

As per the study at The Ohio State University, out of 221 college students, who participated in an online chat room in which they watched a fellow student get "bullied" right before their eyes, only 10 percent of the students directly intervened, either by confronting the bully online or helping the victim.

Lead author Kelly Dillon said that the results weren't surprising as many other studies have shown bystanders are reluctant to get involved when they see bullying. The results were disappointing as a human, but weren't surprising as a scientist.

The bright spot in the results was that a much greater percentage of participants who noticed the bullying (nearly 70 percent) indirectly intervened by giving the bully or the chat room a bad review when given the opportunity later.

Most of the people didn't stand up to the bully, but behind the scenes they did judge the bully harshly and try to pass that information on later when the incident was over, said Dillon.

About 68 percent of participants said later that they noticed the cyberbullying in the chat window. Of the one in 10 who noticed the abuse and responded directly, more than half (58 percent) reprimanded the bully.

Dillon said people shouldn't judge the people who didn't intervene too harshly, because they don't know why they didn't respond. At the end of the study, when they told participants about the true purpose of the study, many who didn't respond or who responded indirectly said that they wished they had directly intervened. Many said they wanted to respond to the bullying, but weren't sure what they should do

Dillon said this research may aid in designing interventions that can help bystanders find ways to stop cyberbullying. For example, this study showed that relatively few participants responded directly to the victim, which may be most helpful in some cases.

Their results appear in the journal Computers in Human Behavior.