There are a lot of things that are contagious, and they aren’t all just sicknesses. Whether it’s someone’s mood, opinion or look, we tend to pick up what the people around us are doing. According to a new survey, the same thing goes for bullying.

STOMP Out Bullying found young people think the world today lacks kindness, and that affects how they treat each other.

In a survey of 1,000 teens, 9 out of 10 said the U.S. lacks kindness. Because the country in general isn’t very nice, 96% of teens said that attitude affects how they treat each other. Basically, the peple in this survey said if the country were a nicer place, they’d probably be nicer to each other. There’s a lot of room for us to be nicer, too. in the survey, 91% of people said kindness is also lacking in how we treat one another.

These statistics are pretty grim. Almost all young people think we’re not nice enough to each other, which is pretty accurate if you ask us. There are likely a lot of things influencing that opinion, but the rate at which teens witness bullying almost definitely has something to do with it. In fact, 45% of teens see as much bullying in person as they do online, and 4 out of 5 teens have had to stand up to a bully.

There is definitely hope, though. In the survey, 95% of teens said they’d be more inspired to be kind if others around them were kind. Since we know acceptance and support is critical for mental health, and bullying can lead to depression for both the bullies and the victims, we should probably start being kind pretty quick. Seeing more kindness around us can start with just one person, so do something nice today and maybe tomorrow someone else will follow your lead.

This post was originally published on Teen Vogue.

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