To many New Zealand adults cyberbullying must seem a token issue, often nothing more than banter given in good humour; undoubtedly it can turn nasty but it's essentially harmless and a part of life victims need to accept and thicken their skin to.
Unfortunately, for many victims it is far more serious than that.
As discussed in a feature series in the ODT this month, it can be deadly serious.
More than 500 New Zealanders commit suicide every year; 569 people in the year ending May 2015.
In the same period 300 people died on the country's roads.
Around 100 people drown around the country annually.
There is no question the country's suicide rate is a serious issue.
And there is no question bullying, and in particular cyberbullying, is a part of that problem.
Last year a 13-year-old Auckland girl was hospitalised after trying to harm herself in what her family said was a reaction to cyberbullying.
In 2013 a teenage girl was found dead in a Palmerston North home.
Friends of the girl believed cyberbullying had been a key factor in her death.
When a 12-year-old girl from the same city died suddenly earlier this year her parents spoke out about the cyberbullying they discovered, after her death, had been levelled at her.
It is easy to advise young people not to post anything to the internet that could end up being used to bully them, or not to frequent the social media sites where bullying occurs.
But that is nothing more than victim blaming - the same false logic that chastises rape victims for wearing short skirts or domestic violence victims for marrying the wrong person.
The issue must be tackled at source, not downstream where a victim sits traumatised.
The source is not the internet, nor the chat pages and social media sites.
It is certainly not the victim.
The source is the bullies.
And whether intent exists or not, those bullies are often us.
All of us.
If it were possible to go back five million years we would likely see our ancestors engaging in bullying.
It is rife at kindergarten, primary school, high school and beyond.
It exists in the workplace, at home between siblings and spouses and on the sidelines of children's Saturday sports.
We are social creatures in a constant battle for social hierarchy; bullying comes as naturally to us as grooming and flirting.
But sickness, deformities and infertility are natural too and we enthusiastically combat them, spending significant time and money doing so.
The internet has helped bullying become a plague that hurts people, kills people.
It costs people time from school and work, affects family relationships.
We must fix it.
And to do so we must start close to home - not with our children, but with ourselves.
Our politicians, including local mayors and councillors, may appear to be free targets but much of the online comment they receive goes far beyond the necessary and democratic sharing and debating of ideas.
Sports stars who disappoint us, or who are perhaps given roles we would prefer seeing someone else in, or who make mistakes off the field are routinely lambasted in coarse, biting online commentary.
In fact any public figure seems to be fair game to cyberbullying, which is what the name-calling, personal insult-laden online chatter often is.
Sometimes the media are guilty.
Sometimes it is the public.
In either case it is wrong.
How can we demand our young people tone down their online antics when they constantly witness such levels of online bullying from the "adults'' who, through the immediacy and anonymity the internet affords, engage daily in the behaviour we say must stop?
Bullying is bullying.
It's rife, it's ugly, it's deadly.
And it can be hugely reduced if we simply stop being the bullies.
