VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – An increasing number of kids own smartphones or web-enabled music players, opening themselves up to cyber-bullying.

The problem has even spawned a new term: mobile-bullying

To mark National Anti-Bullying Day tomorrow, Ipsos has just released a survey showing that among online Canadian teens, ownership of smartphones is up 18 per cent since 2012 to 43 per cent.

Ownership of MP3 players, like the web-enabled Apple iPod Touch, has increased ten percentage points with 61 per cent of online Canadian teens owning one. That means they have immediate, constant and unsupervised access to sites like Twitter and Facebook, opening up more opportunities for online bullying.

The study shows one in five Canadian teens have seen someone bullied online and almost one in 10 have been victims.