Youth trends in job views and online abuse

This is an extract of the Survey Report on the Social Mentality of Young Chinese Netizens (2022) conducted by Fudan Development Institute's Center for Communication and State Governance Research, the Global Communication All Media Research Institute of Fudan University, Bilibili Public Policy Research Institute and the Shanghai Information Security and Social Management Innovation Laboratory. The report surveyed a total of 5,492 young netizens across China in 2021 and 2022.

Changing job world, changing mindsets

Due to a complex domestic and international environment, the employment sector has changed in recent years, affecting young people's mindsets. Whether to take the recruitment examination for official positions — jobs in public institutions or governmental organizations — has become a widely discussed topic online. Among the young netizens who clearly expressed their attitudes, a large majority hold positive attitudes toward official positions. Sina Weibo data showed that 2.06 percent of young internet users were positive about working in public institutions or governmental organizations, four times higher than those with negative attitudes (0.40 percent).

Compared to 2021, employment issues received more attention, with a larger number of young netizens talking about related topics in 2022. The discussion rate of employment issues was 2.75 percent in 2021, and it rose to 2.94 percent in 2022. The percentage of young netizens who preferred to work in public institutions or governmental organizations also saw an increase from 1.84 percent in 2021 to 2.06 percent in 2022.

Young netizens, especially post-00s, and those living in the central and western regions of China, were found to be more inclined to work in public institutions or governmental organizations. Young people in the central region and western region are 17.46 and 8.19 times more likely to express positive attitudes toward official positions than those in the eastern region, respectively. And those born after the year 2000 are 9.3 times more willing to take official positions than those born in the 1990s.

Semantic network analysis of millions of related video comments on Bilibili showed that, with the rising employment pressure, concerns about employment were brought up earlier in life by young people than before. Many of them wanted to make "wise" choices long before graduation by taking a variety of online courses, including tutorials on software skills, resume writing and being interviewed. Data revealed that in 2022, nearly 200 million young netizens took courses on Bilibili and through a "cyber university", an online platform where lessons are offered by hundreds of famous domestic and international experts and scholars, including several Nobel Prize winners. However, making choices too early without adequate job-hunting experience may also lead to confusion and anxiety for young people.

Uncovering cyberbullying trends

Generally speaking, just a small number of young netizens showed a tendency to engage in cyberbullying. Cyberbullying includes offensive expressions like insults, discrimination and ridicule, which tends to gain further dissemination through imitation among young people. Sina Weibo data showed that only 2.2 percent of the sample population demonstrated this tendency, while the remaining 97.8 percent demonstrated no such behavior. However, even though cyberbullying didn't occur very often among young people, its potential harm still demands attention.

In recent years, there has been a growing trend of cyberbullying among young people. Comparing data of the same group of young netizens in 2021 and 2022, we can see that the proportion of them showing a tendency to engage in cyberbullying increased from 1.8 percent in 2021 to 2.2 percent in 2022.

To present a more detailed overview of the cyberbullying tendency among young people, we documented the online behavioral changes of the survey population in 2021 and 2022. Among those who showed cyberbullying tendencies, 35.1 percent shifted from making no relevant expressions to showing a tendency toward cyberbullying, much higher than that of those whose cyberbullying tendency had faded (21.9 percent).Meanwhile, the proportion of young people who directly used swear words and dirty words increased from 3.9 percent in 2021 to 5.5 percent in 2022.

Young netizens with a lower education level are more inclined to cyberbullying. The data showed that compared to netizens with a middle/high school degree, those with a bachelor's degree are 57.8 percent less likely to engage in cyberbullying, and for those with a master's degree or higher, the number reaches 67.5 percent. Moreover, the more active someone is on Sina Weibo, the less likely he or she is to engage in cyberbullying. This suggests that cyberbullies tend to remain more hidden by being less active online — not just because they want to avoid immorality, but because they may face posting restrictions put in place by the Weibo platform.

Deeply engaged Weibo users adhere more closely to online behavioral norms, possibly driven by the desire to uphold their virtual reputation and followership or because what they post on their accounts involves too much personal information. On the contrary, less active Weibo accounts are less likely to have their personal information exposed and face fewer consequences if blocked by the platform, thus exhibiting a higher tendency toward cyberbullying.