Abstract
Importance
Concerns about the risks adolescents face online are rising, and existing research on online harms rarely examines platform-level differences.
Objective
To estimate the prevalence of negative experiences reported by US adolescents online, offline, and across 20 different online platforms using a national survey.
Design, Setting, and Participants
This was a cross-sectional, nationally representative, pilot survey of US adolescents aged 13 to 17 years conducted from February to December 2025 through the probability-based Understanding America Study panel. Self-reported use and negative experiences on 20 online platforms (eg, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube) were assessed.
Exposures
Self-reported use of 20 online communication platforms (eg, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, and YouTube) in the past 4 weeks.
Main Outcomes and Measures
Prevalence of adolescents’ reporting experiencing major risks and harms online, offline, and for each of 20 online platforms in the last 4 weeks. Harms include harassment, sexual solicitation, exposure to violent content, and technology-related sleep disruption. Survey-weighted logistic regression examined demographic associations.
Results
The weighted sample included 472 adolescents (mean [SE] age 14.9 [0.1] years; 46.8% female) from 47 states. Across online and offline contexts, 44.7% witnessed harassment and 29.8% reported experiencing it directly in the past 4 weeks. Online exposure exceeded offline exposure for several harms, including reported exposure to violent imagery (10.7% vs 1.6%), unwanted sexual images (13.4% vs 2.0%), and content encouraging self-harm (9.7% vs 5.2%), while direct harassment was reported at similar rates offline and online (18.5% vs 16.4%). More than half (51.5%) self-reported sleep disruption due to technology use. Prevalence varied by platform.
Conclusions and Relevance
The findings suggest that negative online experiences are commonly reported by US adolescents and vary across platforms and subgroups of adolescents. Measuring the prevalence of negative online experiences is feasible and analogous to public health risk monitoring frameworks.