Online harassment a problem for many US teens

WASHINGTON: A majority of US teenagers say they have been victims of online harassment or bullying, and that social media companies aren’t doing enough to fight the problem, a survey showed Thursday.

The Pew Research Centre survey found that 59 per cent of US teens reported being bullied or harassed online, and 63 per cent said it was a major problem for people their age.

The most common type of harassment cited was namecalling, cited by 42 per cent, while 32 per cent said someone had spread false rumors about them on the internet and 16 per cent said they had been the target of physical threats online.

Among teens surveyed, one in four said they had received unwanted expl icit images, received queries about their whereabouts from people other than a parent or had explicit images of them shared without their consent.

“Name- calling and rumorspreading have long been an unpleasant and challenging aspect of adolescent life. But the proliferation of smartphones and the rise of social media has transformed where, when and how bullying takes place,” said Monica Anderson, the lead researcher for the Pew report.

According to Pew, similar shares of boys and girls have been harassed online, but girls are more likely to be the targets of rumorspreading or nonconsensual explicit messages.

Teens from lower - income families are more likely than those from higher- income families to encounter certain forms of online bullying, Pew said.

Most young harassment victims feel that teachers, social media firms and politicians are doing a poor or fair job in addressing the problem of cyberbullying — an issue which has drawn the attention of US First Lady Melania Trump and Britain’s Prince William.

The teens believe parents are doing better — with 59 per cent saying that parents are doing a good or excellent job in addressing online harassment. — AFP