Social media, which has a great place in the daily lives of many of us, can alienate us from life with the toxic content we see. So why do we always see toxic people on social media? Or should this question be addressed as such?
When we see it on social media, we can come across posts that lead us to negative thoughts and demoralize us. We now use the definition of ‘toxic’ for users who share this post.
We encounter toxic posts of toxic users under almost every post. Well, does this mean that the number of toxic users on social media is higher than other users, as we think?
First, let’s know in what context ‘toxicity’ is evaluated:
It includes comments that can amount to toxicity, insults, threats, sexual assault and hate speech that we encounter on social media or in real life. Many people who see these comments can also say goodbye to online platforms permanently by applying self-censorship. Toxicity can even cause people to harm themselves.
Why is social media “full of toxic people”?
Many people have the notion that social media is a place dominated by toxic people. But this is actually not the case. The essence of the matter lies in the fact that toxic users are much more active in these channels than other users.
Let’s explain through a scientific example:
A study involving four researchers from Stanford University and Google was one of the examples that best sheds light on toxic users. In the study, the results of which were published in September 2022, researchers followed 1 million accounts on Reddit, which has tens of millions of users, with at least 1 post within 18 months.
The percentage of users who shared toxic comments among followed users was extremely low. Only 3% of a million users that is, 30 thousand of them shared at least one toxic comment. But the truth of the matter came out in the comparison with the total number of comments.
33% of the comments were from these toxic users:
The comments shared by a million toxic users on Reddit one third, was shared by the group that made up only 3% of these users. In other words, 30 thousand people left their existence on the platform. It felt much more than 970 thousand people.
So, which are the “most toxic” social media platforms?
The answer to this question was previously given by research by SimpleTexting. SimpleTexting, which conducted a survey with 1018 US users aged 18-75, created the following list (out of 10 points):
- Twitter – 7.82
- Reddit – 7.63
- Facebook – 7.47
- TikTok – 6.83
- Instagram – 6.59
- Snapchat – 5.72
- YouTube – 5.38