Microsoft Study Finds the Internet Community Might Be Getting Nicer

I don’t think it’s any secret that the general anonymity offered by the internet often results in a number of people saying things online that they’d never say to someone’s face. And if you want any proof of that, just play a couple of rounds of Call of Duty, or, alternatively, spend 5-10 minutes sharing your opinions in some of the more controversial Reddit threads. – Following a report via TechSpot, however, a recent survey conducted by Microsoft has concluded that, possibly against a lot of people’s beliefs, the internet (as a whole) is actually getting to be a nicer place!

Microsoft Study Finds The Internet is Getting Nicer!

Now, how did Microsoft actually determine this? Well, the short version is that it all comes down to a survey and users reporting their personal experiences. Keeping things as simple as possible, Microsoft asked teens aged between 13-17 and adults between 18-74 (across 22 countries) about their online experiences. This was broken down into four key categories: reputational, behavioural, sexual and personal/intrusive. From this, a score was generated.

With this in mind, therefore, compared to similar studies conducted, the result for 2021 was 65% which was 2% better than 2020, and, overall, the best result seen since 2016.

“This year’s DCI improvement was led by teen boys and male respondents, who generally reported being less exposed to online risks than female respondents. For instance, teen boys saw a 5% decrease in trolling and unwanted sexting, and a 3% decrease in hate speech compared to last year’s results.

Teen girls and women respondents, on the other hand, reported being both more exposed to online risks and feeling more severe consequences as a result. Females experienced almost 60% of all risks reported in 2021, an all-time high, and were also more likely to have experienced consequences, worry or pain due to being treated uncivilly.”

Where Can I Learn More?

Microsoft has provided reports for each of the 22 countries surveyed in this research. And just in case our UK readers are interested, we did actually quite well in this with an overall score of 55%. A figure that is significantly lower (and better) than the average. – You can, however, freely download and check out all the individual results. So, if you want to learn more about this survey, click on the link here!

Now, on that note, I’m off to go play some Warzone and have my parentage, weight, teeth, and my wife’s monogamy, all brought into question… Again.

What do you think? – Let us know in the comments!