A new report has found that the vast majority of Canadian teens are routinely exposed to violent and graphic material online, CBC News reported. The study involved just over a thousand teens from across all of the provinces, and its central finding is stark: 85 percent of them said they are exposed to real violent content and gore online.
A key point of the report is that these young people are not going looking for the footage. According to the findings, the disturbing material surfaces on its own, woven into the ordinary feeds teens scroll through every day rather than being something they actively search out.
The report breaks down exactly what teens say they are seeing. According to the figures, 73 percent reported seeing videos of people fighting or being beaten up, while 65 percent said they had seen violent incidents involving the police or ICE officers in the United States.
The most extreme content is also widespread. The report found that 52 percent reported seeing people actually being killed or injured in war zones, and 50 percent said they are seeing videos of accidents where people are being injured or killed, underlining how graphic the everyday online experience has become.
The report's lead author described how easily this content intrudes. She said a young person cannot simply look up the cooking videos they are into, the comedian they follow or the latest fashion trend without all of a sudden being accosted by a video of murder, a video of self-harm or a video of someone being run over by a car.
Those behind the work warn the effects can linger. Teens describe negative emotions after seeing the footage, with one high school student saying such content causes so much anxiety that young people start to become scared of their surroundings and of going out in public, calling it shock content.
The report leans on the advice of teens themselves to call for action. It urges platforms to ensure such videos do not autoplay, to put warnings in place and to react quickly when clips are flagged, while also pointing to government efforts such as legislation to keep those under 16 off social media, and advising parents to stay calm and be a safe place for teens to turn to. CBC News said it reached out to the parent companies named in the report, Google, Meta and ByteDance, and was awaiting their response.