Research on Digital Violence

The level of harassment is increasing in two key ways: People are more likely to have encountered multiple forms of harassment online, and severe encounters have become more common.

When the Center began studying online harassment in 2014, they found 35% of American adults had experienced digital harassment.

• That grew to 41% in 2017 and remains the same in the new survey. But the shares for who has experienced more severe forms of harassment – such as physical threats, stalking, sexual harassment or sustained harassment – or multiple forms of harassing behaviors online have risen significantly.

Men are slightly more likely than women to encounter at least one of the six types of online harassment. However there are notable differences in the types of harassment they encounter.

• Men are more likely than women to be called an offensive name or be physically threatened. Women are about three times as likely as men to face sexual harassment online, and younger women are even more likely to experience this type of abuse.

Another difference in the new survey is that sexual harassment of women has doubled in the past three years, while the rate of sexual harassment among men is largely the same as in 2017. Women who have been the target of online harassment also report finding their most recent harassment experiences to be more upsetting than their male counterparts.

79% of Americans think social media companies are doing an only fair to poor job when it comes to addressing online harassment or bullying.

41% of U.S. adults say they have experienced at least one of the online harassment activities.

• Among adults who report having experienced at least one harassing behavior online, roughly four-in-ten (43%) say that they consider their most recent experience to be “online harassment,” while 36% say they would not classify this experience as “online harassment.” An additional 21% say they are unsure.

• Women who have experienced harassing behaviors online are more likely than their male counterparts to say they consider their most recent experience to be “online harassment” (50% vs. 36%).

• A greater share of men than women who have experienced harassing behaviors online say they do not consider their most recent experience to be “online harassment” (43% vs. 28%).

Some 38% of those who had been targeted have experienced only less severe problems like offensive name-calling or purposeful embarrassment.

62% had ever experienced at least one of the more severe forms of harassment: physical threats, stalking, sexual harassment or sustained harassment.

• In their most recent encounter, 34% of targets said they had encountered one of these more severe behaviors, while 31% had faced multiple behaviors (i.e., more than one of the six behaviors asked about)

People who would not call their most recent experience “online harassment” are also less optimistic about the efficacy of a variety of tactics for combatting harassment on social media.

• They are 18 points less likely to say criminal charges and 17 points less likely to say permanent bans for users who bully or harass others would be very effective in helping to reduce harassment or bullying on social media.

A 2017 Center survey found that 45% of men and 39% of women have experienced some form of online harassment.

• Women were more likely to encounter more sexualized forms of harassment.

  • For example, women ages 18 to 34 were twice as likely as men in this age range to say they had been sexually harassed online (20% vs. 9%).

Other encounters that young women describe are more overtly sexual:

• 57% of female online dating users ages 18 to 34 say someone has sent them a sexually explicit message or image they did not ask for.

• This compares with 28% among male users in the same age range.

Previous Pew Research Center studies have shown that these patterns are not confined to dating sites or apps: Young women are often the target of this type of digital abuse more broadly.

For women of all ages, the aftermath of online harassment is also more intensely felt than by men.

• In the 2017 survey, 36% of women who had experienced any type of online harassment described their most recent incident as either extremely or very upsetting.

• 16% of men described their most recent incident that way

Gender differences in perceived harassment on dating sites:

While 32% of female users say people being harassed or bullied is a very common occurrence on online dating platforms, only 19% male users feel the same. These gender differences persist across all age ranges.