![9 in 10 Teens Have Witnessed Bullying on Social Networks [STUDY]](https://helios-i.mashable.com/imagery/archives/05JaPseyOARfYo9beYq7HA4/hero-image.fill.size_1248x702.v1647020391.jpg)
In a survey of 12- to 17-year-olds released by the Pew Research Center on Wednesday, 12% of teenagers reported being bullied in person sometime in the last year, compared to 8% who reported being bullied online.
Most of the teenagers surveyed (69%) said that their peers are "mostly kind" to each other on social networking sites.
Bullying does happen between teenagers on social networks. Roughly nine in 10 teenagers said that they had witnessed someone being mean or cruel to another person on a social network, and 12% said that they witness cruel behavior frequently on those networks. In a recent poll of young adults by the Associated Press and MTV, about 56% of respondents said they had been harassed online at some point.
"I think people get – like when they get on Facebook, they get ruthless, stuff like that," said one middle school girl who participated in the survey. "They act different in school and stuff like that, but when they get online, they like a totally different person. You get a lot of confidence."
Compared to adults in the Pew survey, teenagers were more likely to say that their peers are mostly unkind to each other on social sites, to witness cruel behavior online and to use negative words when describing how people act online.
But about seven in 10 teenagers in the Pew survey said that they've had a positive outcome, such as feeling good about themselves or feeling closer to another person, from interactions on the same sites. Said one high school girl in the survey:
"I think people act different on Facebook because that’s like their – I mean, I think the self that they show you on Facebook could be their true self, like who they actually want to be."
