Social media plays a major role in the lives of young generations, but beyond ‘likes’ and smiling emojis, there’s a serious downside to digital communications: cyberbullying.

Reportlinker conducted a survey on the issue, targeting Millennials and Gen Z aged 13 to 24, to answer several questions:

  • Are young generations aware of the danger of cyberbullying?
  • Have they been victims of cyberbullying (threats, racist, sexist attacks, revenge porn etc)?
  • How do they react?
  • Do young women feel more at risk?

Key results show that:

  • Instagram and Snapchat are the most popular social sites, garnering 71% and 66% of mentions respectively. Despite being the largest social network, Facebook was mentioned just 54% of the time and Twitter 42%.

  • When listing the platforms where the cyberbullying occurs, the top 5 include text messages (24%), closely followed by Facebook (23%), Instagram (21%), Twitter (21%) and Snapchat (10%)

Threats:

  • 71% of young generations say they are concerned about cyberbullying.

  • There is a clear gender split when it comes to feeling threatened with 45% of young women being very concerned compared to 38% of young men saying they are not concerned at all

  • Young people are more aware of the dangers of posting too much personal information as 68% said they share less information about themselves on social media than before.  

How many victims?

  • 38% of people have already been victims of cyberbullying

  • Young women are more likely to be targeted with embarrassing unwanted contact and threatening messages mentioned 61% of the time.

  • Racist (35%) and sexist (34%) attacks were also mentioned  followed by non-consensual image sharing or revenge porn (23%).

Asking for help:

  • Although 15% of respondents would keep the issue a secret, 38% would tell their parents and 27% would tell their friends.

  • By contrast, respondents are less likely to go to the police or inform a teacher about the issue.

To see all the survey results click here.