1.4 Difference between bullying and cyberbullying

Although we are talking about two detrimental phenomena that affect the well-being of other people, there are many substantial differences between bullying and cyberbullying. Often the bullying actions take place between people from the same school or group, between people who know each other. The episodes often occur in the classroom, at school, in sports groups and happen at specific times: at playtime, on the way from home to school, in the changing rooms of the sports centre. In this phenomenon, the bully's need to make himself 'visible', to be the centre of attention, is evident: the level of disinhibition of the CYP engaged in bullying behaviour in these cases often also depends on the group dynamic. The CYP engaged in bullying behaviour carries out the acts of aggression, regardless of the consequences of his actions against the target. In cyberbullying, on the other hand, people from all over the world can be involved, even if they do not know each other. The material can be spread all over the world and circulate at any time on the net, even remaining on the web for a long time. In this phenomenon, there is a high level of disinhibition on the part of the cyberbully: he/she does things that would be more restrained in real life, perhaps also because his power is increased by his invisibility and the fact that he cannot actually see the effects of his actions. A study carried out by some scholars highlighted the fact that those who were bullied offline often turned out to be the aggressors online, reversing their roles in the two contexts, perhaps driven by anonymity and a desire for revenge (Ybarra and Mitchell, 2004). Another role reversal, but in the opposite direction, is reported instead by a different study that shows that targets of cyberbullying are more likely to be bullies in the traditional context (Raskauskas and Stoltz, 2008).