Digital risks, gendered patterns: social media use and help-seeking among Austrian adolescents

Introduction Social media use is near-universal among early adolescents, yet Austrian data on the co-occurring landscape of platform use, online risks, classgroup chat dynamics, and help-seeking remain scarce. Methods This cross-sectional survey examined these four areas among 442 Austrian adolescents in grades 7 and 8 (age 12–16 years) from schools in Carinthia and Upper Austria. Results Social media use was near-universal (98.6%), with WhatsApp, Snapchat, and YouTube most used. Platform preferences differed markedly by gender, most strikingly for Pinterest (49.2% of girls versus 7.2% of boys), and Instagram and TikTok use was higher in grade 8 than in grade 7. Contact risk was common (54.1% had received a contact request from an unknown adult), and 45.7% had encountered problematic content (among those who described it, predominantly sexual or violent material, most often on TikTok). Classgroup chats were reported by 86.7% of adolescents; spam was the most frequent nuisance, while insults and cyberbullying were less common and showed no gender difference after correction for multiple testing. When distressed online, adolescents mainly named friends and parents rather than formal channels, and grade 8 students reported receiving more classroom information about AI than grade 7 students. Discussion The findings indicate gender differences in platform use, unknown contact requests, and help-seeking from friends, and a gap between perceived formal school support and adolescents' expressed needs.