Archive of Our Own ^beta

Notes:

• For Yemi Hikari (Yemi_Hikari).

Harassment is harassment – whether it happens at school, at the playground, on the job or on the internet.

But online bullying is downplayed. Victims are stigmatized, mocked as oversensitive snowflakes who can't take a joke. Plenty of people are unwilling to accept that victims can be seriously hurt by this behavior.

Internet harassment is not only genuine and damaging. It represents a threat to the most vulnerable among us: children. In addition, Cyberbullying statistics show the high cost of online harassment.

From increased depression and suicide rates to social anxiety and alienation, the pain and consequences of online harassment are as severe as they are undeniable.

Key cyberbullying statistics

90% of teens in the US believe cyber harassment is a problem.

15% of young cyberbullying victims would prefer to keep the issue a secret.

Students are almost twice as likely to attempt suicide if they have been cyberbullied.

80% of teens say that others cyberbully because they think it is funny.

37% of bullying victims develop social anxiety.

59% of US teenagers have experienced bullying or harassment online.

14.5% of children between the ages of 9 and 12 have been cyberbullied.

Additionally, 66.3% of tweens tried to help the victim of cyberbullying.

Statistics on internet use among children 1. 95% of US teens are internet users.

Statistics on cyberbullying reveal almost complete online interactivity among young people, especially teenagers.

Almost all of them – 95% – are now online, and most use the internet daily for school, video games, social media, and video streaming.

The always-connected generation is vulnerable to more victimization and bullying than their parents ever were.

There are more opportunities to harass someone in cyberspace, and the anonymity of the internet makes it easier to get away with bullying.

2. 45% of teens say they are constantly online.

One of the more obvious internet facts is that smartphones have made it possible to remain online around the clock, even when you're nowhere near your PC or laptop.

This has massively increased the time that people, especially teens, spend on the internet. In 2014, 24% of teenagers reported that they were constantly online. By 2018, the number had grown to 45%.

This teen statistic study also reveals that teenage girls are more likely to be near-constant users than teenage boys (50% to 39%).

3. Only 25% of teens spend in-person time with friends outside of high school.

The internet is changing children's behavior across the US, with teens spending more time online than socializing with their friends. Just a quarter of the teens responding to a recent Pew survey said they spend offline time with their friends each day. This shows how important the online world is and how damaging social media bullying can be to young people.

4. 15% of teens engage in sexting.

Sexting, or the exchange of sexual messages and explicit images, is growing in popularity as the younger generations spend more and more time on their smartphones.

The data on sexting among teens shows that 15% of adolescents under 18 send sexts, and 27% receive them. This trend of sharing your naked photos and explicit messages also boosts cyber bullying stats, and it is expected to lead to more online harassment as it becomes more prevalent.

5. 35% of girls aged 15 to 17 say they have received unwanted explicit images.

The US adolescent cyberbullying cases data tells us that young girls are more likely to receive unwanted explicit images than boys. Out of all teen respondents, 29% of girls and 20% of boys said they targeted these messages. The research also shows that the numbers rise as teen girls get older, with 35% of girls in the 15-17 age range receiving unwanted explicit images, compared to 20% of boys in the same age range.

6. 88% of teens say they share too much personal information online.

(Pew Research Center)

Social media has led an overwhelming majority of young people to share too much personal information and life on the internet. This creates more problems, as bullying statistics show that 42% of teens said that someone else had posted information about them on social media, further exposing details of their daily lives to others. About a fifth of them said they felt worse about their own lives after seeing what their friends post on their profiles.