Digital Well-Being Index – Year Three
February 2025
At Snap, nothing is more important than the safety and well-being of our Snapchat community. We have in place, and consistently enforce, policies and rules that detail the type of content and behavior that are acceptable on Snapchat. We offer tools and resources to help Snapchatters stay safe, and we engage with others in industry and across the tech sector to better protect teens and younger users in particular.
To offer insight into how teens and young adults are faring online, three years ago, we launched research into Generation Z’s digital well-being. Now, since 2022, we’ve surveyed teens (aged 13-17), young adults (aged 18-24), and parents of teens, aged 13 to 19 in six countries: Australia, France, Germany, India, the UK, and the U.S. The study produces a Digital Well-Being Index (DWBI): a measure of Gen Z’s online psychological well-being.
While Snap commissions the research each year, the survey covers Gen Z teens' and young adults' experiences on all platforms and services with no specific focus on Snapchat.
DWBI readings for 2024
The third Digital Well-Being Index for the six geographies stands at 63, one percentage point higher than the previous two years, and still a somewhat average reading on a scale of 0 to 100 – neither particularly favorable, nor especially worrisome. By country, India again registered the highest DWBI reading at 67, unchanged from Year Two. Readings in both the UK and the U.S. ticked one percentage point higher from Year Two to 63 and 65, respectively. Australis dipped one percentage point to 62, and Germany and France both held steady at 60 and 59, respectively.
The index leverages the PERNA model, a variation on an existing research vehicle, comprising 20 sentiment statements across five categories: Positive Emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Negative Emotion, and Achievement. Respondents were asked to state their level of agreement with each of the 20 statements, taking into account all of their online experiences on any platform, service, device, or application (not just Snapchat) over the preceding three months. (The research was conducted from June 3 to June 19, 2024.) To review all 20 DWBI sentiment statements, see this link.
The parent/teen dynamic in 2024
A DWBI score was calculated for each respondent based on the 20 sentiment statements. Their scores were aggregated into four DWBI groups: Flourishing (10%, unchanged from Year Two); Thriving (44%, up 3 percentage point from 41% in 2023), Middling (40%, down 2 percentage points from Year Two) and Struggling (6%, down one percentage point from 2023). (See, Below for details.)
In 2024, parents’ trust in their teens to act responsibly online ticked higher, with four in 10 (45%) agreeing with the statement, “I trust my child to act responsibly online and don't feel the need to actively monitor them.” This is up two percentage points from the prior year but still down from 49% in Year One. Encouragingly, more minor-aged teenagers (13-to-17-year-olds) sought help from a parent or trusted adult after they experienced an online risk, a pop of five percentage points to 64%, again matching the percentages from Year One in 2022.
Meanwhile, parents said they checked in more regularly with their teens, jumping nine percentage points to 51% from 42% the prior year, but nearly one in three (29%) said they were unsure about the most effective ways to monitor their teens’ online activities. That percentage is up from 23% in 2023.
Other key results
Our digital well-being research yielded other interesting findings. Below are some highlights. The full report can be viewed here.
80% of Gen Z teens and young adults said they experienced some online risk in early 2024, up two percentage points from 78% in 2023.
47% of Gen Z respondents said they were ever involved with intimate or sexual imagery, either receiving it (39%), being asked for it of themselves (35%), or sharing or distributing photos or videos of someone else (17%). Moreover, of the 17% who admitted to sharing intimate imagery, 63% were lied to about the recipient’s identity and 58% said they lost control of the imagery once shared.
One in four (24%) said they had ever seen AI-generated sexual imagery with very few photos or videos involving minors, and about a quarter of respondents didn’t know engaging with any sexual imagery of those under 18 is illegal.
Please find additional, country- and language-specific resources on our Digital Well-Being Index below: