Half of all girls in Britain are bullied on social media: survey

Poll also showed that 40% boys have experienced abuse online

Half of all girls in the UK have faced some form of harassment on social media, claims a survey carried out by Plan International UK.

The poll also showed that 40% of boys have experienced abuse online, reports The Guardian.

It is noted that the survey conducted involved 1,002 young people aged between 11 and 18. Out of the respondents, 235 out of 486 girls reported online abuse as compared with 202 boys out of 510.

Plan International UK said that while its findings highlighted pressure on all young people, it shared that the type of abuse received differed between genders. The charity called for more to be done to tackle sexism in the online world.



"What we did find is the nature of abuse differs, and if you look at what girls are experiencing offline, for example, street sexual harassment, that is being echoed in the online world. So girls are being told what to wear, how to look, to shut up about their opinions. That really stood out for us," Lucy Russell, campaign manager at Plan International, shared saying.

The poll showed nearly double the number of girls 23 percent said they felt harassed regularly by someone through social media, compared with 13 percent of boys.

A large percentage of both boys and girls explained that they had changed their behaviour online in a bid to stem criticism. Girls also held back from taking part in online debates or conversations for fear of being criticised.

Social media has a much larger impact on how girls view themselves, the survey found. Half the girls admitted that they felt pressure from social media to look, act a particular way.

"Evidence shows cyber-bullying can have a profound effect because it never disappears. We can return again and again to the words and they hurt us anew, and also because we read them in our own voice. We need to stop saying, ‘Don’t be on social media if you don’t like it’ or brushing misogyny off as ‘harmless banter’ and ‘freedom of speech’, and make a concentrated effort to transform social media into a place where girls can feel safe," Natasha Devon, the writer, campaigner and former mental health champion for schools shared.

The poll follows a study last year by Girlguiding UK which found that a third of seven to 10-year-old girls believed that they were judged on their appearance, and a quarter felt the need to be perfect.



A department for education spokesperson said, "The UK government is investing more than £4m in anti-bullying projects and has introduced new cyber-bullying guidance which provides advice for schools on understanding, preventing and responding to cyber-bullying. We will soon be consulting on the range of issues which should be included in the updated relationship and sexual education guidance."