Online Racism and Youth Mental Health

[Dr. Henry Willis]: So we have seen, through work that me and my colleagues have done, that experiences of online racism, and online racial discrimination in particular, are associated with increased anxiety symptoms, depressive symptoms, post-traumatic stress symptoms, and even increases in alcohol use and suicidal ideation. Studies have shown that Black youth have had to navigate both online and offline forms of racial discrimination at the same time, and this dual kind of burden also has a very big negative impact on their mental health. So in a study, they found that in just a matter of two weeks, Black youth reported experiencing over 5,000 instances of both online and offline experiences of racial discrimination, with an average of over five racist encounters a day. It’s important to note that most of these encounters happen online – and, more importantly, if you are exposed to these encounters, you had worse mental health that day that you saw the content, but also you had worse mental health the next day because of that content. In another study that I’m leading, we’ve actually found longitudinally that even being directly targeted because of your race online could lead to increased trauma symptoms even a year later after being attacked online.