India leads Snap’s digital well-being report for third yr working, 78% Gen Z search help for on-line security

Snapchat has launched the third version of its Digital Effectively-Being Index (DWBI) simply days earlier than Safer Web Day, which is noticed on 11 February 2025. The report provides insights into the web experiences of Gen Z customers throughout six international locations, together with India. The findings reveal a robust efficiency in India for the third consecutive yr, but in addition underscore rising considerations about on-line dangers.

The survey, which gathered responses from over 9,000 contributors in India, Australia, France, Germany, the UK, and the US, targeted on the digital well-being of Gen Z customers aged 13-24, in addition to dad and mom of teenagers. India emerged because the chief in digital well-being, securing the best rating at 67.  

This rating displays constructive parental engagement and sturdy help networks, with 78 per cent of Indian Gen Zs searching for help for on-line security—a rise from 65 per cent in 2023. Parental involvement was additionally noteworthy, with 70 per cent of oldsters actively checking in on their youngsters, the best amongst all of the international locations surveyed.

On-line dangers persist regardless of sturdy help methods

Nevertheless, regardless of these constructive indicators, the report highlights troubling traits associated to on-line security. India recorded the best charges of sextortion, a type of on-line blackmail wherein personal, typically intimate, pictures or movies are used to extort victims.  

A staggering 71 per cent of respondents reported being focused by sextortion, with 55 per cent of them falling sufferer. Moreover, 77 per cent of contributors reported shedding management over shared intimate pictures, with 80 per cent of those circumstances involving minors aged 13-17. Grooming was one other alarming problem, affecting 60 per cent of respondents, with minors comprising 56 per cent of these impacted.

Uthara Ganesh, Head of Public Coverage for India and South Asia at Snap Inc, commented on the findings, stressing the significance of communication between dad and mom and youngsters to make sure on-line security. She famous, “This constructive evolution within the digital parent-teen dynamic is essential for navigating an more and more advanced on-line panorama.”

Snap Inc’s efforts to foster digital well-being

Snapchat has used these findings to tell its ongoing initiatives aimed toward bettering digital well-being. The platform’s Household Middle, which provides parental oversight instruments whereas respecting teen privateness, has been up to date to incorporate higher content material controls.  

Moreover, the Household Middle now permits dad and mom to disable My AI, Snapchat’s chatbot, for teenage customers, additional enhancing their means to observe and shield their youngsters’s on-line interactions.

The report highlights each the progress made in bettering digital well-being and the challenges that stay in addressing the growing on-line threats confronted by younger customers. Whereas India continues to steer in digital well-being, the rising prevalence of on-line risks requires sustained efforts and higher consciousness to safeguard Gen Z’s on-line security.