Does Multi Media have an Impact on Violence in Schools

Instagram, snapchat, facebook etc… are forms of social media, a place where young teens and children can go on to express themselves. At first, it was a positive and safe space where everybody can go onto and say/do whatever they wanted. Now problems such as cyberbullying, distraction, depression and even narcissism has arised out of technology. Social medias are a great platform to raise awareness and explore self expression but it is also a place where bullies can anonymously troll people and just be rude.

According to a research done in 2011, nearly 43% of kids have been bullied online and 1 in 4 has had it happen more than once, 70% of students report seeing frequent bullying online, 68% of teens agree that cyberbullying is a serious problem, 81% of young people think bullying online is easier to get away with than bullying in person, 90% of teens who have seen social-media bullying say they have ignored it, Only 1 in 10 victims will inform a parent or trusted adult of their abuse and About 58% of kids admit someone has said mean or hurtful things to them online.

These unfortunate but true statistics prove that technology has done more harm than good. By providing these prepubescent teens a place to act a way that they would never act in real life, say mean, harmful things that they would never say in real life. Overall, technology is a good place for angry teens to release their anger and a bad place for teens who just want to express themself.Not only does social media promote cyberbully, but it also promotes teen violence. Acts such as shootings and fighting are most likely fueled by something that was said online. As reported through a survey by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, “Nearly 24% of students had been in a physical fight on school property one or more times during the 12 months before the survey. And nationwide, about 7% of students had not gone to school at least 1 day during the 30 days before the survey because they felt they would be unsafe at school or on their way to or from school.” Proving that criminal activity, gang violence, physical fights and cyberbully are all caused by social media. Teens go on there to show off how cool they are by smoking, drinking under 21, doing crack, using guns and fighting which eventually leads to more bad activity because bad breeds bad.

Another source states that, ” From July 1, 2014 through June 30, 2015, there were a total of 47 student, staff, and other non student school-associated violent deaths in the United States, which included 28 homicides, 17 suicides, and 2 legal intervention deaths, The 2016 serious violent victimization rates were 3 per 1,000 students at school and 5 per 1,000 students away from school,  79 percent of public schools recorded that one or more incidents of violence, theft, or other crimes had taken place, amounting to 1.4 million crimes and 57 percent of primary schools recorded violent incidents compared with 88 percent of middle schools and 90 percent of high schools.” As you can see by the last statistic that the highest rate of violence is present in high school. This is because kids from ages fourteen to eighteen have to deal with the most change. Change in their bodies, change in their family and changes in their mental health. Because of all these hormonal, confused teenagers are put into a single space, violence is bound to happen and technology is what fuels almost all of it.

A horrific incident that occurred in June, 2004 has change the nation’s view on social media and the internet altogether. Reported by numerous news channel, two preteens lead their bestfriend into the woods and stabbed her exactly nineteen times. When they were asked why, these teens claimed Slenderman made them do it. This case ended up starting a long debate of whether or not media exposure influence teen behavior. Things such as video games, recordings of criminal activity and xbox/playstation has been linked to an increase of violence in teen behavior. Because video games are so easily accessible to teens, they tend to spend at least six hours sitting in front of the screen everyday. Another link to violent teen behavior is social media, an increased in time spent on social media has been directly correlated to bad teen behavior. According to The Psychiatric Times, “Moreover, similar to the way media coverage of suicide can act as a contagion for “copycat” suicides,there is also evidence that some mass killings may be influenced by other violent acts in the immediate past. recent videos of murders and gang violence uploaded to Facebook Live—overall exposure to, and potential for, copycat violence may be increased.” Showing that exposure to violence all over the internet will potentially steer teens into a wrong and violent path. Personally, I strongly feel like technology does contribute to the rise in teen’s violent behavior. Websites such as youtube, twitter and facebook plays a definite role in teen violence. Four years ago, ABC news covered a story about how a gang in chicago went on Facebook to call out another rival gang, recruit new members and made several threats regarding shooting and killing. This sparked a storm of violence between many gangs within chicago and eventually, a deadly shooting broke out. This is a prime example on how social media heavily affects the behavior of teens.

By being explicitly exposed to crimes like murder, teens are raised to believe it is okay to commit crimes, since it’s pretty common on the internet. Due to the easy access that almost every single teen has to social media, one coming across a video of crime activities is extremely common. Not to mention, many parents don’t monitor what their kids activity when using technology, it is more likely the kid will come across a criminal related video. According to the Oxford Encyclopedia, “On Friday July 22, 2016, a gunman killed nine people at a mall in Munich, Germany. The 18-year-old shooter was subsequently characterized by the media as being under psychiatric care and harboring at least two obsessions. One, an obsession with mass shootings, including that of Anders Breivik who ultimately killed 77 people in Norway in 2011, and the other an obsession with video games.” All of these acts of homicide was committed by fully functional teens who became grossly obsessed with some violent video games. It is clear that technology such as social media and video games exposes children to violence and criminal activity at an extremely young age which results their feelings getting manipulated and transferred into violence.

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