Home » News » In Latvia, 47% of the population have received negative comments on the Internet about themselves

In Latvia, 47% of the population have received negative comments on the Internet about themselves

In Latvia, 47% of the surveyed residents have received negative comments on the Internet about themselves, their recordings, occupations or hobbies, according to a study of the social campaign “#sekosev” of the mobile operator “Tele2”.

Young people aged 18 to 25 receive the most negative comments on the Internet – more than half or 54% receive them.

The study found that the most common negative comments are about political beliefs (49%), appearance (47%), sexual orientation (40%) and occupation (30%). In the survey, 56% of women believe that the most negative comments are received about appearance, while 54% of men believe that the most criticism is about political beliefs.

On the other hand, young people aged 15 to 25 noticed that negative comments were most received about appearance (61%), sexual orientation (52%), political beliefs (51%) and religious beliefs (30%).

According to the study, the population most often encounter negative comments on social networks “Facebook” – 76%, “YouTube” – 29% and “Instagram” – 28%. In comparison, 77% of young people face negative comments on Facebook. 40% of young people face negative comments on YouTube and 47% on Instagram. The study also found that the number of negative comments on the Internet has increased over the past year, and 56% of young people and more than 47% of the population as a whole have observed this trend.

In the social campaign “#sekosev”, which aims to motivate and encourage young people to follow their goals and ideas, despite the negative comments, several opinion leaders who have experienced and are experiencing similar situations – Jānis Krīvēns or “@Krivenchy”, will share their experience. Beāte Bērziņa or “@betabeidz”, Samanta Tīna, Indra Salceviča and Arstarulsmirus.

According to social anthropologist Klāvs Sedlenieks, today’s digital environment has not fundamentally changed anything, because there has been historical talk and criticism in the past as well. “In my opinion, the biggest problem today is talking and criticizing out of context. In the past – before the Internet era – strangers were not actually talked about. Or, if they were talking, strangers didn’t care because they never knew about it. But now many critics “It is easy to attack anyone and do it anonymously, without knowing anything about the person at all. In addition, people like to punish others – in this case, sharply commenting on some violation. The question, of course, is how relevant this punishment or comment is,” he revealed.

Artūrs Miksons, a lecturer at the Department of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, Riga Stradins University, emphasized that there are two sides to the story of negative comments – the recipient of the comment and the narrator or writer. “Criticism of a commentator by someone is often not about the person he is criticizing. It is a demonstration of a position of power, a self-affirmation, because often these critics are misunderstood and unsupported by their relatives, families. This means that the trigger or irritant “A person expresses or writes a negative comment, hides somewhere else, and the negative comment is only its external manifestation,” said the doctor.

Raivo Rosts, Commercial Director of Tele2, said that the mobile Internet opens up a wide range of opportunities to realize, study, work and communicate. At the same time, in the Internet environment, people are not shy to express their negative and often unfounded opinions about others. “Sometimes the burden of negative comments can be so great that we give up our dreams or hopes just because we think ‘what we think’. We want to encourage young people with positive stories to ignore these negative comments or use them as a motivation to continue and try even more. That ‘s why the motto of the campaign is – follow yourself, not comments, “he said.

In order to find out the attitude of the Latvian population, especially young people, to the comments on the Internet, the mobile operator “Tele2” conducted a survey in cooperation with “BERG Research” in July this year, and 509 respondents participated. The study was conducted during Tele2’s social campaign “#sekosev”, which will last until September and in which the company will encourage young people with positive stories to ignore negative comments on the Internet or use them as a motivation to pursue their goals.

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.