Adult SNS users were asked a question that did not appear in the teen survey: “When you’re on a social networking site, how often do you see people being generous or helpful?” Some 39% of adult SNS users said they frequently saw acts of generosity, 36% said they sometimes saw it, 18% said they saw it “only once in a while” and 5% said they never saw it. The SNS users who were most likely to say they frequently saw people being generous or helpful included whites (41%), college graduates (45%), and those living in households earning $75,000 and above (46%).

When it came to unpleasant behavior on SNS, adults have seen their share, but it tends to be evident to them far less frequently than it is to teen SNS users. Both groups were asked the same question: “When you’re on a social networking site, how often do you see people being mean or cruel?” Some 49% of SNS-using adults said they saw mean or cruel behavior displayed by others at least occasionally, far lower than the 88% of SNS-using teens who said they had seen mean or cruel behavior at some point. Moreover, 29% of SNS-using adults said they had never seen mean or cruel behavior on the sites, compared with 11% of teens who said they had never seen it.

Social network site users in the Millennial generation reported quite similar rates of witnessing mean and cruel behavior as their younger peers in the teen cohort: 9% of SNS-using Millennials said they frequently saw mean and cruel behavior; 25% of them see it sometimes; 48% see it “only once in a while”; and 16% said they never see it. Frequent users – those who use SNS at least once a day – are also more likely to see mean or cruel behavior more often.