Survey: Over 60% Of Users Encounter Negative Experiences With YouTube Content

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A recent Pew Research Center survey has found that over 60% of users have negative experiences with content on YouTube.

Pew Research Center published the results of a survey of over 4,500 U.S. adults last week that describes the experience that many users have on YouTube, and how they use the platform.

The most surprising insights (and perhaps the most troubling) is that 64% of users “say they at least sometimes encounter videos that seem obviously false or untrue while using the site.” 60% say they “at least sometimes encounter videos that show people engaging in dangerous or troubling behavior.”

It’s worrying that over 60% of YouTube users encounter negative experiences with content, while a large percentage still allow their young children to watch videos on the platform.

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More worrying is the fact that 61% of “parents who let their young child watch content on the site, […] say they have encountered content there that they felt was unsuitable for children.” Despite this, 81% of respondents who were parents with children age 11 or younger let their child watch YouTube videos – 34% of them say their child watches content on the platform regularly.

Almost half of YouTube users use it to figure out how to do things they’ve never done before.

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Users are turning to YouTube for much more than entertainment though. The survey found that almost half of users use it to figure out how to do things they’ve never done before (53%) – One in five (13% of the adult population) say that YouTube is “very important for helping them understand events that are happening in the world.”

68% of respondents say that YouTube is important “simply for helping them pass the time (with 28% saying it is very important to them for this reason).” Finally, 54% of respondents say “it is important for helping them make purchasing decisions.”