As we move further into the second year of the pandemic, it seems online civility is dwindling. A survey of 11,067 people across 22 countries by Microsoft shows 82% of the countries were seeing net-worse net civility during the COVID crisis. Microsoft surveyed age groups between 13 and 74 and asked about 21 common online risks spread across four categories: behavioral, personal, reputational, and sexual. Germany, Poland, Philippines, Hungary, and Italy showed the biggest decline in online civility. Four nations – Peru, Mexico, India, and Colombia – displayed net-positive results. 17% of people says they had observed an improvement in online civility, although 30% said it was worse. This is compared to 26% and 22% in 2020.
Stats
Other important notes to take from the survey include:
““A greater sense of community” tumbled 12 percentage points to 50% from 62% in 2020; “People have been more encouraging to each other” dropped eight percentage points to 49% from 57% last year; and “People have come together more to deal with the crisis” was down six percentage points to 53% from 59% in the previous study. People are taking out their frustrations online” was up seven percentage points to 67%; “People are less tolerant” edged up to 59% from 54% last year; and 54% of respondents said they had experienced or witnessed more personal attacks and negative comments this year compared to 53% in 2020.”
While it is a meme to say people are just nastier to each other online, it is still disappointing to have it proved. Microsoft says a full report focused on the survey will be published on February 8, 2022, which is Safer Internet Day. Tip of the day: Did you know that your data and privacy might be at risk if you run Windows 10 without encryption? A bootable USB with a live-linux distribution is often just enough to gain access to all of your files. If you want to change that, check out our detailed BitLocker guide where we show you how to turn on encryption for your system disk or any other drive you might be using in your computer.
