When the feed changes how you see your neighbour

The full distribution for “Has online content on social media (WhatsApp, Instagram, YouTube) ever negatively altered your real-world perception of another community?” (n = 399) is: No, my real-world inclusive views are independent of algorithms — 55.4% (221); Yes, slightly/temporarily — 29.3% (117); Yes, frequently — 15.3% (61).

The cohort is clearly concentrated on this question. A single option carries 55.4% of responses, so the headline figure is stable enough to plan against. The smallest recorded answer, yes, frequently, still represents 61 people — a group large enough to matter in programme design even at 15.3%.

The sample is a community-recruited cohort of 399 respondents surveyed between 21 May and 28 June 2026. Figures describe this cohort; they are not state-level prevalence estimates and should not be reported as such.

The composition of the sample also shapes the totals: 74.4% of respondents fall in the older student and early-career band, and 72.7% identify as male. Any reading by gender, district or occupation needs disaggregated fieldwork this instrument was not designed to deliver.

The instrument records one moment in time, so nothing here identifies a cause or a trend. Statements about mechanism in this brief are interpretive and flagged as such.