Putting U in the Picture asked 770 young people aged 11 to 19 about mobile phone bullying and discovered that 14 per cent of them had been victims.
According to the Wireless World Forum's mobileYouth 2005 report, 7.6 million 10- to 19-year-olds in the UK own a mobile phone, meaning that NCH's findings suggest that more than one million young people have been bullied by text message.
John Carr, head of the children and technology unit at NCH, said text message bullying is as serious as face-to-face bullying. "Bullying can ruin people's lives and, in extreme cases, it has led to suicide," he said. "And it is precisely because mobile phones are so precious to young people that they feel very trapped by text message bullying. They feel they must deal with it by themselves or think their parents will take away their phone if they admit it is happening."
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