WHEN ABUSE HITS DIGITAL: CYBER BULLYING AND TEEN RELATIONSHIPS

Abuse used to be personal, now its digital.

Who Is Involved / Who It Affects

Teens everywhere are coping with more than just face-to-face fights unfortunately now their heartbreak, disrespect, and abuse travels through screens. Victims can be in relationships, friendships, or peer groups. Perpetrators often are people they trust. Some were bullied before, some see violence at home, some are trying to process their own trauma. The lines are blurry.

In Chicago, parents know this is real because 76 percent of Chicago parents say bullying (including cyberbullying) is a big problem for youth. In Illinois, nearly half of youth report having been cyberbullied in their lives. 

What / When / Where / Why / How

What: Cyberbullying : harassment, threats, rumor spreading, nonconsensual sharing, social exclusion via digital means.

When & Where: On social media, text apps, group chats truly any digital space. Teen relationships now carry constant connectivity.

Why: Power. Control. Emotional hurt. Jealousy. Trauma getting replayed. Sometimes the abuser doesn’t even see it as “abuse.”

How it overlaps with inter-partner violence: In teen dating, abuse isn’t just physical. Digital actions become leverage such as, monitoring location, reading texts, shaming in group chats, sending threats, spreading private info. The same dynamics of control, fear, isolation play out online.

Nationally, about 30% of teens say they’ve been cyberbullied at some point. 

In studies, 15.8% of students reported cyberbullying in the past 12 months and 25.9% reported school bullying, with large overlap. 

Impacts Seen Through My Lens: When teens carry abuse digitally and relationally, trauma compounds. They learn hypervigilance, shame, self-blame. Emotional wounds go deeper because there's no space to escape. They carry it into their phones, their social feeds, their downtime. That’s why in our trauma-informed youth programs, we teach skills for emotional regulation, digital boundaries, consent online, accountability, and wellness to help reclaim power.

What Chicago Must Face

We must name that the violence teens face is both public and private, online and offline. Interventions have to see the whole person: their home, their peers, their devices. Just because abuse is digital now, doesn’t make it less real. Policymakers, schools, tech platforms you all must be better. Platforms should take down harassment faster. Schools should treat digital bullying with the same urgency as physical. Teens need safe reporting systems.

Next Steps / What Teens, Adults, & Allies Can Do

• Establish digital boundaries. Use privacy settings, block, limit time, set “no contact” rules in relationships.

• Teach media literacy & consent online. What’s okay to share? What’s not?

Safe reporting channels. Anonymous tools, trusted adults, school liaisons.

Integrate in youth programs.

• Make space to talk about digital abuse in Happy, Healthy, Whole, Beyond the Moment, etc. Community healing + transparency.

• Show teens examples of healthy relationships, model accountability.

  
  

• Trauma-informed responses. When teens come forward, respond with care, not blame.