Digital Friendships Report

The UK Safer Internet Centre has published their Digital Friendship research report. A total of 2000 children aged 8-17 years completed a survey which explored their feelings and attitudes towards social media and revealed that despite the often-publicised negative effects of social media use, the internet plays a pivotal and positive role in how young people develop relationships and maintain their social lives in 2018.

Key findings include:

• Two in five 8-17-year-olds say they have felt worried or anxious on the internet in the last week, with one in ten (11%) reporting they have often felt this
• 68% of young people said that chatting to their friends online cheers them up
• When a friend was feeling sad or upset, 88% of young people said they sent them a kind message
• Almost half (49%) of young people said that in the last year someone had been mean to them online, with 1 in 12 experiencing this all or most of the time
• In comparison, more than four in five young people (83%) have experienced people being kind to them online in the last year

You can download the Digital Friendships Report from the Safer Internet Centre website.