Who is to blame for the juveniles?

Introduction
Every day we open our newspapers, television sets, surf the internet there is one topic that
dominates the media tickers everyone and that is violence, especially violence by the youth, a
school or college shooting somewhere, drug abuse, arson, bullying, rapes and what not. There
seems to be a pattern here of you look at the statistics available through various legitimate
sources, the pattern suggests that the incidents of violent behavior in youth has increased in the
past few decades. Who is to blame? Their schools for not imbibing good behavior, their parents
for not teaching them good values or the entertainment media that constantly fills up young
minds with gory graphics of bloodshed and cruelty.
While we can debate on the effects of violence on the young minds to find a solution to this
problem we will have to attack the very cause, what causes such kind of behavior, what makes
people act like delinquents who can get away easily from their wrongdoings, is it the schools, the
parents, the community or something else altogether. In my opinion its the constant stream of
violence and sex depicted on the television.
In this age of easy media availability people spend most of their free time not socializing face to
face or playing outdoor games or learning a new skill but rather lazing in front of their television
sets. Theyll watch anything thats on as long as it is interesting, and the most interesting content
it seems is sex and violence. In these past recent years parental controls over the content of
television programs has waned and there seems to be a laxity in proper screening of content
being shown on the television. People sit and watch various programs that depict violence and
sex in various inappropriate ways which forces the idle mind to consider the ramifications of

these acts if they were to happen in real. The viewers think that if the villain or the hero can get
away with violence and sexual innuendos so can they, they in fact sometimes accept or clarify
that the stands taken by people performing such acts on a television program as right, they justify
the actions as logically correct, in a way this blurs reality for the viewers with little sense to the
verity that theres a difference between the real and reel life, while there might not be any laws in
the reel life but there is a code of conduct in the real life and no amount of justification makes it
right to perform any form of violence or indecent sexual acts.
In a line yes there is an urgent need to restrict the depiction of sex and violence on television
sets. Children and adolescents have easy access to television and their minds can easily bend
towards antisocial behavior if exposed to the wrong kind of content. Various researches over the
years have proved that there is a spurt in violence among the youth and many other researchers
have also stated that most juvenile offenders were exposed to violence and sex early on during
their life which led them astray towards a life of delinquency in form of drug abuse, violent
behavior, sex offenders and the list goes on. The concept of morality is a fickle one for
impressionable minds, they generally have a tendency of hero worship and their minds justify all
the acts committed by their favorite hero as correct as they dont have the ability of adults to
distinguish right from wrong this leads to them acting like their respective heroes and ending up
doing unintelligent things which then have repercussions on them as they are early on exposed to
a life of immoral behavior, they slowly lose touch of the reality and vanish in their own realm
where everything done by them is somehow justified by the stand taken by their heroes in same
situations. The ghastly depiction of violence and sex stimulates their brain into negative activities
and what starts as innocent curiosity ends in a ghastly mishap, this ought to stop. To summarize,
there is an imperative need to restrict violence and sex depiction on the television.

The time of communication in a jiffy is here, one click and the whole world knows where you
are, what youre up to, what youre wearing, what youre going to do next, well the possibilities
are just endless and so is the maddening world of social media. The internet has almost
everybodys wall of information, a tweet now relates to a short, concise post rather than the
beautiful sound made by birds. The impacts and implications of social media are huge and the
discussion seems to be never ending.

Facts about social networking effects

Experts argue about benefits and risks of social media over individuals, businesses and the
society as a whole, as quoted by Brad Dinerman The popularity of social networking sites has
increased at astonishing levels. There is no arguing the usefulness of sites such as Facebook,
Twitter and LinkedIn. They can be used for professional networking and job searches, as a
means to increase sales revenue, as a tool to keep the public informed of safety and other issues
or as a way to reconnect with friends from way-back-when, in his white paper titled Social
Networking and Security Risks1 it seems there are benefits of using the social media while in a
paper authored by June Ahn of University of Maryland, there are findings like Teenagers are
among the most prolific users of social network sites (SNS). Emerging studies find that youth
spend a considerable portion of their daily life interacting through social media. Subsequently,
questions and controversies emerge about the effects SNS have on adolescent development. This
review outlines the theoretical frameworks researchers have used to understand adolescents and
SNS. It brings together work from disparate fields that examine the relationship between SNS
and social capital, privacy, youth safety, psychological well-being, and educational achievement.
These research strands speak to high-profile concerns and controversies that surround youth
participation in these online communities, and offer ripe areas for future research.2

Social networking features are increasingly integrated into other types of media tools and online
communities. Sonia Livingstone (2008) notes that SNS invite convergence among the hitherto
separate activities of email, messaging, website creation, diaries, photo albums and music or
video uploading and downloading (p. 394). Through research it has been established that
todays teenagers spend more time socializing over social media rather than going out and
conversing face to face, this has led to diminished social skills required to survive in the real
world, while some organizations have used social media and its popularity to boost their sales
and performances. Some researchers also claim that spending a long time on social media can
lead to narcissistic personalities and various other psychological disorders. A study conducted by
a group of scientists at the University of NorthFlorida has answered some questions like, Is
Facebook usage linked to narcissism and the answer, staggeringly is yes3 in some situations like
when sharing a photo or a personal detail however empathy was leading factor when users
engaged in chats and conversations, the exposure routes to social media for todays population
are robust and there is no way that high school goers can be deterred from using social media, as
their peers are online and they wont be the ones to miss out on it.
However some studies related to social media impacts on organizations has led to the conclusion
that social media can be used by organizations to target huge vulnerable populations to increase
their sales as mentioned earlier. Harvard Business Review, The New Conversation: Taking
Social Media from Talk to Action article quotes that The exponential growth of social media,
from blogs, Facebook and Twitter to LinkedIn and YouTube, offers organizations the chance to
join a conversation with millions of customers around the globe every day.4 clearly the scenario
and its effects are scattered at some places social media seems to be actually helping people
while at some places it just seems to be a redundant place that just wastes time. In yet another

research conducted by Maxwell Chi regarding security policies and social media use, the
conclusion was Despite their advantages to workers and business processes, many organizations
are reluctant to adopt social media technologies because of security concerns. Over half of
organizations worldwide prohibit the use of social media in the office. But increasingly, workers
are demanding to be allowed to use these technologies to conduct business and collaborate with
coworkers.5
The effective benefits of social media that can be ascertained from research is that they give us a
mode of communication and to know the latest whereabouts of people, they let us keep track of
events and they help us connect with the world. The negative effects are over usage of social
media has lead to people preferring to stay indoors and no interest in outdoor activities, this has
been linked to various health effects like obesity and social awkwardness, a CDC article by
Laura M. Koehly has concluded that Growing interest in interconnectedness has brought into
focus an often ignored issue: networks pervade all aspects of human health.6
Conclusion
While the studies may claim various things and one can argue that like a coin has two sides so
does using social media, it has both pros and cons. The pros being connectivity to peers in case
of individuals and consumers in case of organizations, but there are prevalent risks like obesity
and narcissism in individuals and security risks for organizations. However like every new
technology social media needs to be used judiciously, one has to know how much to use it and
when to use it, so that individuals do not miss out on the joys of actually meeting people and
hanging out together and organizations need to understand just how much exposure to

advertisement is enough for people. Lastly it depends on the general public to use their
judgment, indulgence in anything is bad and usage of anything in proper moderation is good.

References
1. Dinerman

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2. Ahn J. The Effect of Social NEtwrok Sites on Adolescents Social and Academic
Development: Current theories and Controversies, retrieved from http://ahnjune.com/wpcontent/uploads/2011/11/0Final-Ahn2011JASIST.pdf
3. Alloway T., Runac R., Qureshi M., Kemp G. (2014) Is Facebook linked to Selfishness?
Investigating the Relationships among Social Media Use, Empathy, and Narcissism
4. Report, The Harvard Business Review, The New Conversation: Taking Social Media
from Talk to Action, page 1
5. Chi

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retrieved

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http://www.sans.org/reading-room/whitepapers/policyissues/reducing-risks-social-mediaorganization-33749
6. Koehly L. (2009) Adolescent Obesity and Social Networks, retrieved from
http://www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2009/jul/pdf/08_0265.pdf