Most Canadian teens have seen violence, gore online: survey

Young people use their phones to view social media in Sydney, Nov. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft, File)

A new survey suggests most Canadian teens have encountered real violence or gore online.

Eighty-five per cent of the 1,007 teens who participated in an online survey in January reported seeing either form of brutality online.

More than 70 per cent had seen videos of physical fights and 65 per cent had viewed police violence.

Fifty-two per cent watched someone being injured or killed in a war and 43 per cent reported seeing dead human bodies.

The survey comes at a time when countries around the world including Canada are debating or have already implemented social media restrictions or bans for young people.

The online survey was conducted by polling firm Leger and commissioned by scholarly organization DIY: Digital Safety and the Canadian Centre for Child Protection.

The Canadian Research Insights Council, an industry organization that promotes polling standards, says online surveys cannot be assigned a margin of error because they do not randomly sample the population.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 26, 2026.

Tara Deschamps, The Canadian Press