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In an interview Friday from Bergen, Mr. Olweus said he recognized that his reality check on cyber-bullying, published in the European Journal of Developmental Psychology, would create “some turbulence” in academic circles, but he felt it necessary to correct a distorted picture.

“I felt that there were a number of reports about increasing levels [of cyber-bullying]: that this was very frequent, that children, as soon as they got this possibility, started doing negative things online,” he said. “We had data and they suggest quite a different picture.”

He quoted studies from the United States and Norway showing that rates of cyber-bullying were one quarter to one-third those of traditional verbal bullying. In the U.S. sample, 18% of students in grades 3 to 12 reported verbal bullying, compared with 5% who reported cyber-bullying. There was no evidence of an increase of cyber-bullying over the last five years, and most of the victims of electronic bullying also experienced traditional bullying. “These results suggest that the new electronic media have actually created few ‘new’ victims and bullies,” Mr. Olweus wrote.

In the interview, he said there are dangers in overstating the extent of cyber-bullying. It could lead authorities to misdirect anti-bullying efforts. It also creates “a lot of unnecessary anxiety and tension among adults who feel that they have little knowledge or understanding of what goes on online,” he said.