Half of girls aged 7-10 experienced online harm in last year
Girlguiding says there has been a devastating fall in girls' happiness
There is a 'devastating' downward trend in the happiness of girls according to new research, which also showed that almost half of girls aged seven to 10 have experienced online harm in the last year.
49% of girls in this age group said they had experienced at least one online harm over the past 12 months, such as receiving mean comments.
Almost a fifth of the girls aged 7-10 who were surveyed told Girlguiding that they had encountered a person pretending to be someone else, while more than 11% said they had seen obscene pictures.
71% of all the girls interviewed experienced online harms
Some 2,114 girls and young women aged between seven and 21 were surveyed between March and April for Girlguiding’s annual girls’ attitudes 2021 survey, shared with the PA news agency.
Of all those polled, 71% said they had experienced an online harm, including 73% of girls aged 11-16 and 91% of those aged 17-21.
One in four (26%) of those aged 11-21 said they had been sent unwanted sexual images, half had received sexist comments and 28% had been harassed.
Disabled and LGBTQ girls and women were more likely to experience online harm – 40% of disabled 11 to 21-year-olds compared with 25% of respondents without a disability – and 42% of LGBQ respondents compared with 24% of straight girls and women reported being harassed online.
Girls are also “unavoidably seeing unrealistic and unattainable images of perfection”, with 45% of 11 to 21-year-olds having encountered images that made them feel insecure about their appearance.
Overall happiness amongst girls 'dramatically' declining
The research showed just a quarter of seven to 10-year olds said they feel “very happy most of the time”, down from 43% in 2018.
Two-thirds of girls (67%) said they are feeling more sad, anxious, or worried, with Girlguiding saying the coronavirus pandemic has “accelerated and intensified” these feelings.
And 62% of girls say they have felt lonelier over the past year, increasing with age.
Some 63% said they feel happy most of the time, down from 81% three years ago, with a third of all girls feeling unhappy most of the time.
'Society must listen'
Girlguiding chief executive Angela Salt said society must listen and act in the interest of girls to avoid a “lost generation”.
She said: “Girls’ mental health has been significantly impacted. Online harms have been exacerbated.
“It’s critical that we address the decline in girls’ happiness that we’ve observed since we started this research over a decade ago.
“I’m proud that Girlguiding has provided invaluable support for girls’ mental health and wellbeing during the pandemic and into recovery – helping to build confidence, resilience and giving them a space to have fun, adventures and develop their skills.
“But society must do more to address this worrying downward trend.”
Almost all of the girls and young women surveyed said they want more to be done to protect young people from body image pressures.
Nine in 10 want stricter rules to stop advertisers “bombarding” them with weight-loss or “appearance-improving” adverts online.
Girlguiding is calling for urgent action to revert the trend in decline in happiness among girls, for online harms legislation to address appearance pressures, and for better protection for children from social media adverts for weight-loss and “appearance-enhancing” products.
If you're feeling affected by any of the issues in this article and need someone to talk to, please contact Samaritans on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org.