Survey: Teenagers Mostly Experience Online Hate Via Instagram, Facebook

Ditch The Label is an anti-bullying organization based in the United Kingdom, and the company recently released the results of its new yearly survey. The results showed that this year, cyberbullies are most active on instagram, and also on Facebook. In completing its information, Ditch The Label polled more than ten thousand respondents, mostly teenagers between 12 years and 20 years old. 

According to the teenagers surveyed that have encountered cyberbullying, 42 percent of them are claiming they have been bullied on Instagram, 37 percent reported being bullied on Facebook, and 31 percent said they were bullied on Snapchat. It bears noting that 92 percent of the teens who responded have stated that they were also using YouTube (making the world’s foremost source of online videos as the most popular social media platform in the survey), just 10 percent of them have reported being bullied.

Despite the fact that many consider Instagram as an active participant in when it comes to getting rid of spam and inappropriate hashtags, the social media giant was a bit late in adopting features in order to minimize cyber bullying. And even though Instagram and other social networks have already started introducing steps to combat online hate, most teenagers still think these platforms are not doing enough to help people protect themselves against bullies. Per the results of Ditch The Label’s annual survey, 70 percent of those polled are saying that they do not believe social media companies are doing something worthwhile to eradicate bullying in the Internet. Interestingly, 12 percent of teenagers have claimed that they have bullied somebody else (based on their own definition of what cyberbullying is).

In conducting its study, Ditch The Label also found that there is a big gap between how teenagers behave in real life settings compared to how they behave online. Around 47 percent of those surveyed stated that they do not make a habit of sharing unpleasant stuff in their lives on social media platforms, choosing instead to portray a sanitized version of themselves, so to speak.

According to Liam Hackett, the chief executive officer of Ditch The Label, there is a growing concern regarding how different teens view the concept of right and wrong in their real life versus their online life. Hackett revealed that results of the survey showed that 44 percent of teenagers are convinced that only the stuff that happens in real life could be considered as real life.