Question

To what extent do you think social media plays a role in juvenile delinquency? Social media, for the purpose of this question, includes, but is not limited to, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, etc.

Answer 1

Juvenile delinquency is defined as behavior of children under age of 18 that gives rise to crime or legal action. Juvenile delinquency includes crimes of all types like violence, bullying, substance abuse ,theft ,sexual abuse.

Number of various factors lead to juvenile delinquency, some of them are single parents, separated family,,poverty, lack of parental descipline etc. Social medial also plays a very important role in shaping tendencies that lead to juvenile delinquency.

Impact of social media is immense on minors or children below 18 mainly because minors lack ability to sift out the irrational from rational and logical view. Children are mainly labile, they have lot of novelty seeking and very low harm avoidance so they mainly get into all wrong things easily without giving a second thought which makes them more prone to become delinquent.

Mass media is playunp a very important role,it has become more important than family and friends , children are lured to it and fascinated by it,to an extent that they have given up education,other outdoor activities, relationship. Media is just making them more destructive,aggr aggres and due to lack of communication with family and friends these behavior are becoming irreparable.

The way violence is potraied in media ,with unnecessary hype has revolutionised the way one receives,perceives and retains the news.

Social media including news on Facebook,Twitter or any news channels on TV have number of negative outcomes -

- Leads to Increase in antisocial and agressive behavior in children

- desensitizes children to violence and victims of violence,childre c tend to become blunt

- cognitive cahnges in adolescents in viewing the world as violent and mean.

Apart from this children see a lot of violence based movies, movies with messages and morals in which hero is potrayed in a negative role who is involved in crime and violence ,children get fascinated by such roles easily and try to model the violent behavior in real life ,this increases their delinquent behavior.

Making gangs or groups on social media sharing content like pornographic movies is not uncommon these days, also due to easy availability of internet such delinquent behaviors are on the rise.

Getting into physical or sexual abuse just to try something new and different that they had seen on media is becoming a common occurrence in juveniles.

Thus social media and mass media has an important role in juvenile delinquency. Thus there should be some body to watch and limit the delinquent behavior in it's early stage. Each social networking site should be maintained , observed and filtered by moderators to lessen the abuse of users. Also news in the media should be kept a watch on and should not be hyped. Censor board should reveiw all movies crime/ violence based before release.