A recent survey of 472 US adolescents across 47 states found that online harm is a common experience. In the four weeks before the survey, 44.7% of respondents said they had witnessed online harassment, while 29.8% reported being targeted directly.
The study also found that offline targeting was just as prevalent as online targeting, with a similar proportion of teens saying they had been harmed in person. This parallel suggests that harmful interactions are not confined to digital spaces, though the study does not identify why the rates align.
Because the sample is small and drawn from a single survey, the results should be interpreted cautiously. Still, they point to the scale of the issue and the need for further research into how online and offline harm overlap for adolescents.