Dto cyberbullying to revenge porn, from stalking to body shaming, to contact by unknown people. They are all forms of violence that 1 in 2 young people say they have suffered at least once in your life. And the place where this violence is acted out and suffered, the most at risk of all, is the web: the 2026 edition of the Indifesa Observatory, created by Terre des Hommes together with the Scomodo community, he talks about the relationship between social media and teenagers, taking photographs a very lucid generation regarding web security issues. Boys and girls know the enemy wellIn short. But they cannot avoid falling back into its pitfalls. «The need to conform is stronger», explains Paolo Ferrara, General Director of Terre des Hommes Italia. «What they need are not new tools for their devices but someone to understand their emotions».
Distributed on the occasion of the Day against Bullying and Cyberbullying (7 February) and Safer Internet Day (10 February), the report collected the opinions of over 2,000 Italian children under 26.
In particular, girls say they have suffered violence more than boys (57% vs 42%), and non-binary people have suffered it even more than girls (67%). Physical violence against young people occurs in uncontrolled public places – the street, public transport – but also in intimate and family relationships. Among the boys instead, school and the friendly context take on greater weight. «Here yes consumes still with evidence of machismo within the peer group», explains Ferrara.
«For 66% of young people, the web is a place of violence, and yet…». Data and analysis from Terre des Hommes
Teenagers are very aware of the risks they can encounter on the web. From the revenge porn, the main risk for 59% of them, and in particular for girls and the older age groups, to the experience of being contacted by strangers. It happened 80% around them, generating – especially in girls – annoyance and fear.
«The perception of danger is very high», explains Paolo Ferrara: «it is the most important data from this year’s research. While the numbers of those who have witnessed or suffered acts of violence of some kind are stable, just as the knowledge of the tools is stable, risk awareness has never been greater».
Social media and adolescents: the need to conform greater than fear
This, unfortunately, does not protect them. «The kids know that they are forced to sharing your password with your boyfriend or girlfriend is a new form of control. Yet then there is always a reason why they end up doing it in some way” (69% of young people do it).
Just as, if living on social media exposes them to bodyshaming, hate speech and forms of denigration, they also remain and live on the web. «They certainly have no shortage of tools to technically use the devices. What they need instead are tools to manage relationships, emotions, the consequences that violence brings with it». And they are different consequences, from the most subtle, such as loss of self-confidence, to the most striking, such as panic attacks.
The issue, typical of the age, is the need to conform: «They do not feel strong enough to adopt behaviors that are also safe behaviors for them: if dangerous ways are shared by the peer group, they have no choice but to adopt them.” Let it also be the sharing of intimate material.
(Terre des Hommes press office)
What to do? Psychologist and sexual-affective education at school
As they are aware of the risks of the web, they are aware of their own emotional fragility: «For years our research has told us that 90% of boys and girls ask for a psychological supportpreferably outside the school itself, to avoid social stigma. Just as they would like there to be asexual-affective education at schoolespecially on the issues of consent and respect and management of emotions.”
The distance between generations is exacerbated by the “digital diet” of our children. «Normally and rightly, boys and girls, in the phase of searching for their own self, go looking for it among their peers».
Social media and adolescents: between algorithms, self-referentiality, emotional fragility
So what can we do? «Don’t fool ourselves, as we have, that as digital natives our children know everything. Of course, they know better than us how to delete a history or how to make a reel, but they don’t know how to manage the emotions that even just these actions generate.”
Just as we must not delude ourselves that social media is a place that gives space to all voices. They are governed by algorithms that have trading functionality. So, more than a virtual square, social networks are a commercial mall.
But there is a further problem in the digital diet of young people, and it arises from the fact that it is more than complete. «Their smartphone is a self-referential world in which to do everything: play, have relationships, learn. If everything goes from there, they can also get to avoid any type of direct confrontation».
Advice to parents
I believe that as parents we should find a new point of balance to give children rules that are accepted and respected. «If on the one hand it is essential to loosen control, to give autonomy, on the other the approach according to which everything is agreed upon makes us useless in the relationship. So I believe we need to go back to saying no, not dictated by anger and tiredness but with a pedagogical sense.
As parents we have to team up. «With other parents, first of all, for example to postpone the age at which one gets the first telephone». But an alliance is also needed between the institutions.
The responsibility of the institutions: yes to bans for teenagers on social media, as in Australia and France
Parental responsibility is decisive but Ferrara also shifts attention to that of governments: «Boys and girls demand that the web be regulated. And experiences in this sense, such as those ofAustralia (which banned social media for children under 16) and the France (which is working to ban them for children under 15)I think they are positive. Not because the web has suddenly become controllable: enforcing these bans is not easy. But imposing them means making gods precise steps in one direction. A direction that finally responds to the evidence about i permanent neurological damage caused by these technologies on children and young peoplethe”.
We know that putting a smartphone in a child’s hand during a restaurant lunch so that we, as adults, can forget about him is wrong. And there are no excuses, there are no exceptions.
Social media and adolescents and the risks of artificial intelligence
However, it is still not clear, Ferrara admits, how much damage can artificial intelligence do in the hands of minors: «It is the first year that we have monitored AI in our observatory: it is clear that children already use it as an assistant for everything. Also to deal with your emotional relationships and health issues. A percentage of around 60% asks her for psychological advice and romantic support.
Ferrara avoids raising the alarm, but warns of the possible risks. «If AI does what people do, what need will we have for flesh-and-blood relationships tomorrow? But above all: we all know the bias associated with artificial intelligence, such as bias of consent”. If the AI tends to repeat to me what I think, it will also trivially tend to confirm the reasons why, for example, I am depressed and others are angry with me.
Pure, There’s no point in terrorizing each other. «Indeed, it penalizes us: our objective must be to address technological transformation in manner as rational as possibletightening alliances between families and with institutions. And the reason is simple: we have no alternatives.”
