• by Erik Sass , Staff Writer @eriksass1, October 14, 2014

Roughly one in three British teenagers ages 15-18 have met someone in person after first “meeting” them online, accord to a survey of 1,015 young Brits by Comres. Furthermore 25% of respondents said that the feel happier online than in real life, whatever that means (I thought that “online” was part of “real life” because “real life” is everything we perceive and experience, but what do I know?).

The good news is that most teens (66%) believe that the number of friendships they make in person are still more important than the number of friends and followers they have manage to accumulate on social media; just 28% believed the number of online relationships were more important, and 13% said they believe their online friends know them better than friends they have met in person.

One thing’s for sure: social media is ubiquitous, with just 1% of British teens saying they never check in online. Overall the most popular social network is -- wait for it -- Facebook, used by 89% of the Comres survey respondents, with Twitter in second place at 62%, and Snapchat third at 58%.  

But the relationship with social media is conflicted, with many respondents also expressing concern about their social media use. Indeed, 25% of British teens feel like they’re “addicted” to social media, and 51% said they felt compelled to check on social updates and notifications as soon as they’re posted. Meanwhile 62% believe their friends are addicted, and 25% said they wished they could give up social media.

There’s also the ever-present issue of bullying. Earlier this year I wrote about a report from Sky News, which found that around 2,000 children, some as young as nine years old, had been investigated by police in the U.K. over the last three years for potentially criminal activity on social media, including abuse, threatening messages, and online bullying. Furthermore out of the 1,932 children investigated, 1,203 of these -- again, including children as young as nine -- have either been charged with a criminal offense or given a warning or fine. 

The trend is on the increase, with the total number of cases investigated per year increasing 5% from 2011-2014; the first nine months of the 2013-2014 reporting period is already setting a record with a total of 7,318 adults and 610 individuals under age 18 investigated.