This paper deals with the issue of cyberbullying as a dangerous and socialpathological widespread problem, especially among children and young people. This issue is currently a hot topic. It is a misuse of information and communication technologies to harm others. This cybernetic form of bullying has many common features with traditional bullying, but it also gained new ones, typical for an online environment. These are anonymity, disinhibition effect, unlimited audience and independence regarding time and place. The most common symptoms include; cyberbullying humiliation, slander, threats, theft of passwords or publishing inappropriate photos and videos. Experts on the subject differ in many ways on their opinions, resulting in large differences in the results of the studies investigating the occurrence. The aim of this paper is to present the problem of cyberbullying, its basic risk characteristics, and forms and prevalence in the Czech and Slovak Republics, where the investigation is at the beginning stages, compared for example with the United States, which has been investigating this phenomenon. In the future, it will be necessary to get more local data for dealing with and preventing this social-pathological phenomenon, which was given rise by the digitization of the contemporary world.

Regional Authority of South Bohemian Region Department of Environment Agriculture and Forestry Section of Rural Development Landscape Care and Concepts Czech Republic

University of Pardubice Faculty of Health Studies Pardubice Czech Republic

Literatura