Younger Children Have Gone as Quiet as Teenagers About Online Sexual Harm

Preteens used to be the ones who spoke up. When something sexual happened to them online, they were more likely than older teenagers to tell someone about it, whether through a reporting button or by finding an adult offline. That has changed. Preteens now stay silent at the same rate as teenagers do, after a sharp rise in the share who disclose to nobody at all.

The finding comes from Youth Perspectives on Online Safety, 2025, the sixth annual report from Thorn, a nonprofit that makes detection technology for platforms and investigators and publishes research on how children experience the internet. It surveyed more than a thousand American minors aged nine to seventeen, and 27% of them said they had experienced an online sexual interaction.

Embarrassment and Fear of Judgment Come Up Most

Nearly one in two of the children who kept an online sexual interaction to themselves said they felt embarrassed and worried about being judged. Those two reasons have grown steadily more common in Thorn's research since 2020.

The scale of what goes unsaid has widened along with the definition. Among teenagers, 34% reported an online sexual interaction on the measure Thorn has used for years. Counting self-generated sexual imagery, deepfake nudes and sexual extortion as well, the figure rises to 45%.

Some Children Take It to a Chatbot Instead

Two thirds of the minors surveyed, 67%, said they had used an AI chatbot or companion, and 29% had used one for guidance or information on something sensitive or personal.

Among the children who had experienced an online sexual interaction, 15% said they confided in a chatbot or sought its guidance afterwards. Among children who had been bullied or made uncomfortable online, 7% did the same. A child who has been harmed sexually online is more than twice as likely to take it to a chatbot as a child who has been bullied.

"AI is increasingly becoming part of how young people process confusing or harmful online experiences," said Amanda Goharian, Director of Research and Insights at Thorn. "We have to look at that fact as a sign that kids are beginning to feel comfortable turning there for immediate support. And we must ask if these tools are designed to respond in age-appropriate, trauma-informed ways that ultimately help young people turn to trusted adults."

“We must ask if these tools are designed to respond in age-appropriate, trauma-informed ways that ultimately help young people turn to trusted adults.”

— Amanda Goharian, Director of Research and Insights, Thorn

Children Who Signed Up Underage Reported Harm Three Times as Often

Almost half of the minors surveyed, 47%, had got onto an app, website or platform before they were old enough to meet its minimum age requirement. Among those children, 41% reported an online sexual interaction. Among the children who had not signed up early, 13% did. That is more than three times the rate.

Age gates are the one part of this a parent can see from the outside. A birthday typed into a sign-up form is checkable in a way that a private message is not.

Teenagers Cannot Always Tell a Deepfake Nude From a Real One

Among teenagers, 4% said sexual deepfake images had been made of them, and 7% said they had seen one made of another child. A further 13% did not know whether they had seen one or not, which is the larger group.

Thorn's own conclusion is that safety systems still tend to treat these harms one at a time, by platform or by category, while children move between them. The full report sets out the year's findings and how they have shifted since the survey began.

Thorn's research and its guidance for parents are at thorn.org.