UK teens experience spike in online harm during Covid-19 pandemic

Jessica Ringrose A new pair of reports co-led by a UCL researcher highlights the scale of online harm faced by young people in the UK while also demonstrating the impact of educational workshops in equipping young people with tools to navigate the digital world. For the first report, researchers surveyed 551 UK teenagers (aged 13-18), as well as teachers, school safeguarding leads and parents, and carried out interviews at schools and online. The report found that 78% of those surveyed experienced at least one type of technology-facilitated harm, which included body shaming, online harassment, public outing of their sexuality, and image based sexual abuse, and 99% of these participants reported that incidents increased during the Covid-19 pandemic. The report, Young People's Experiences of Technology Facilitated Gender-Based Violence During Covid-19 , was led by Professor Tanya Horeck (Anglia Ruskin University - ARU) and co-authors included Professor Jessica Ringrose and Betsy Milne (Ioe, UCL's Faculty of Education and Society). A second new report, Equipping Young People to Navigate Post-digital Sexual Violence , led by Professor Ringrose showed the positive impact that workshops designed to help schools reduce sexual violence can have. By improving young peoples' knowledge of sexual violence and the different forms it takes, the workshops equipped them with tools to navigate the digital world. Professor Ringrose's study piloted schools-based workshops in mixed and single-sex secondary schools with young people in either Year 9 (aged 13-14) or Year 10 (aged 14-15).