Teens and Social Networking Sites

In 2011, Pew Research Center in partnership with Family Online Safety Institute, conducted a study about teens and social networking sites in the United States. They surveyed 799 teens ages 12 to 17 years old from middle school and high school. From the study it showed that 95 percent of teens from 12 to 17 years old are online and 80 percent of those teens are using social networking sites.

An enlightening finding was that most American teens, about 69 percent, who use social networking sites, stated in their experience, they found teens that were the same age were in the most part nice to one another.  However, about 20% of teens stated other teens were mostly unkind and 11 percent stated "it just depends."  Also, a majority of teens reported when they see mean behavior online, they just ignore it.

Here are some additional findings from the study about teens that use social networking sites:

• 88% of teens have witnessed other people be nasty or cruel on social networking sites
• 15% of teens have been the target of online unkindness
• 78% of teens report they had at least one good outcome from interactions while 41% of teens report at least one negative outcome.
• 19% of teens have been bullied in the past year in either in person, online, by text, or phone
• Two-thirds of teens who have observed cyber-bullying also watched others joining in on the meanness while 21% of teens stated they admitted to joining in on the pestering.