15-05-2025
Teenagers being exposed to violent social media content
What are teens being exposed to online?
Image source, Getty Images
Over the course of the day we will be hearing a lot about the harmful content children are seeing on social media platforms.
But actually getting inside the algorithms that dictate the content teens are seeing on their feeds was another challenge entirely. As BBC journalists, how could we possibly understand what kids in our area are really accessing online?
Well thanks to Sophie, Maya, Aisha, Harry, Ash and Kai - all of whom are 13 to 15 - we got direct access to the feeds of teenagers on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.
We should say that none of these teenagers actually exist. All of them were set up by our journalists Harriet Robinson and Andy Howard as part of a week-long investigation into how teenagers see harmful content online.
For seven days, Andy and Harriet scrolled for 10 minutes a day as the teenagers - screen recording everything they saw.
Throughout the course of the day we'll hear about what these fictional teenagers were exposed to, from innocent scrolling to graphic videos on mental health and violent crime - and what social media companies are doing to try and limit harm.
