The highest levels of cyberbullying were experienced by boys in Bulgaria, Lithuania, Moldova and Poland, while the lowest levels were reported in Spain, WHO said, without providing detailed data.
“With young people spending up to six hours a day online, even small changes in rates of bullying and violence can have a profound impact on the health and well-being of thousands of people,” Kluge said.
The report said one in eight teens admitted to cyberbullying others, an increase of three percentage points from 2018.
Meanwhile, the number of teens involved in physical fighting remained stable at 10 percent over the four-year period – 14 percent for boys and six percent for girls.
The study was based on data from 279,000 children and adolescents from 44 countries in Europe, Central Asia and Canada.
In most places, cyberbullying peaked when children were 11 years old for boys and 13 years old for girls.
The report found that parents' socio-economic status made little difference to children's behavior.
However, Canada was an exception, where less advantaged youth were more likely to experience bullying.
There, 27 percent of girls from the 20 percent least affluent families said they had been bullied at school, compared to 21 percent of girls from the 20 percent most affluent families.
Noting that the problem was widespread, the report called for greater efforts to improve awareness.
“More investment is needed in monitoring various forms of peer violence,” it says.
“While regulating social media platforms to limit the risk of cyberbullying, there is also an urgent need to educate youth, families and schools about the forms of cyberbullying and its effects,” it concluded.
