U.S. electronic bullying
How common is cyberbullying among high-school students?
CDC measures electronic bullying in a national school survey. The question includes texting and social media, with a clear 12-month window.
Data: 2025 YRBS · Evidence checked: 2026-10-06
of U.S. high-school students reported that they had been electronically bullied during the 12 months before the 2025 survey.
People · Grades 9–12 · U.S. public and private schools · Valid responses, weighted
Source: CDC YRBS Explorer, 2025, Total table. Source 95% confidence interval: 13.5%–15.8%. This is not restricted to social-media users.
Source: CDC. Original materials are available free of charge on CDC.gov. Use by Social Usage does not imply endorsement by CDC, HHS or the U.S. Government.
Reported experiences differ within the same survey.
CDC reports 17.7% for female students and 11.6% for male students. The descriptive difference is 6.1 percentage points, calculated by Social Usage from those two reported estimates. This is not a causal effect or a statistical significance test.
U.S. high-school students · 2025 · CDC source sex categories
Source: CDC YRBS Explorer, Total table, Female and Male columns. Original Social Usage graphic. 95% confidence intervals: female 16.1%–19.4%; male 10.2%–13.2%. Each percentage uses its own group’s valid responses.
View the national, sex and grade data
| Group | Share | Source 95% CI |
|---|---|---|
| All students | 14.6% | 13.5%–15.8% |
| Female | 17.7% | 16.1%–19.4% |
| Male | 11.6% | 10.2%–13.2% |
| 9th grade | 15.4% | 13.7%–17.4% |
| 10th grade | 15.5% | 13.2%–18.2% |
| 11th grade | 13.7% | 12.0%–15.6% |
| 12th grade | 13.3% | 11.5%–15.5% |
Source: CDC Explorer, national Total and Grade tables. All four grade estimates use the Total column. Female and Male retain the source’s sex labels; they are not a complete classification of gender identity. Exact item and subgroup sample sizes are not shown in the selected table.
Grade-level point estimates run from 13.3% in 12th grade to 15.5% in 10th grade. The intervals are important context: these are different groups surveyed in the same year, not the same students followed as they get older. The table does not establish an effect of age or grade.
What does “electronically bullied” include?
The electronic-bullying question asks about the student’s experience across texting and social media. That item does not identify the app involved, the number of incidents, who did it, or whether a student was also bullied at school. A platform name in the question is an example, not a platform-specific statistic.
Read the exact question and denominator
“During the past 12 months, have you ever been electronically bullied? (Count being bullied through texting, Instagram, Facebook, or other social media.)”
Answer options are Yes and No. The numerator is Yes; the denominator includes valid Yes or No answers. Missing or invalid answers are excluded. A blank answer is not treated as No.
Source: 2025 YRBS Data User’s Guide, Q24/QN24, printed page 23 (PDF page 26).
This answers a specific question about electronic bullying among students in grades 9–12. It cannot stand in for all online harassment, all teenagers, adults, or bullying on a particular platform.
Definition and response scope: CDC Q24/QN24.
Keep the limits with the statistic.
How was the estimate measured?
These are self-reported, weighted national survey estimates for students in U.S. public and private high schools. CDC describes a multistage cluster design and weights that account for school and student nonresponse and student composition. We reproduce CDC’s estimates and 95% confidence intervals; we do not calculate new sampling errors.
A confidence interval describes sampling uncertainty. It does not remove recall, coverage or nonresponse error. The school-based population does not cover every teenager outside school.
Source: CDC Data User’s Guide, printed pages 12–13; Explorer confidence-interval note.
Can this show that social media causes bullying?
No. This page reports the prevalence of an experience, not an experiment or an adjusted causal estimate. It does not compare social-media users with nonusers or connect frequency to bullying. The separately scoped high-school social-media frequency page answers how often students use social media.
Bullying on school property and electronic bullying are separate survey questions. A student can answer Yes to both; adding their percentages would not give a unique share experiencing any bullying.
Question scope: CDC Q23 and Q24, printed pages 22–23.
Inspect the calculation, dates and review
Social Usage descriptive calculation: 17.7% − 11.6% = 6.1 percentage points. Inputs are the source-rounded estimates; no extra precision or confidence interval for this difference is inferred.
- Data period
- 2025 survey; previous-12-month recall. Exact fieldwork boundaries are not established in this page’s evidence.
- Source publication
- The dynamic table does not state an exact publication date. The supporting guide is dated September 2026.
- Retrieved / checked
- 2026-10-06 / 2026-10-06
- Review
- Assisted source and calculation verification. No independent human editorial approval is claimed.
The Explorer’s generic citation footer still refers to 1991–2023. Our citation identifies the selected 2025 table and its fixed filter URL. No trend is calculated here.
Reuse and source credits
Selected CDC national aggregate facts support this original editorial presentation. CDC’s agency-materials policy has exceptions for protected third-party content. We use no CDC logo or source photograph. This page offers a citation and accessible table; downloadable datasets, image exports and embeds are not enabled for this reviewed record.
Source: CDC. Original materials are available free of charge on CDC.gov. Use by Social Usage does not imply endorsement by CDC, HHS or the U.S. Government.