Minors face danger from Facebook, other sites

INITIAL investigations regarding last week’s mall shooting incident revealed that the 13-year-old boy reportedly planned the killing of his alleged 16-year-old lover based on his earlier posts in his Facebook page.

While the family of the younger boy was claiming that the said posts where tampered with by police investigators who had custody of the minor’s laptop, authorities nonetheless concurred that the shooting was done in a fit of jealousy over the older boy taking on another lover.

The investigators pointed out that the shooter wrote the name of the person, whom he was supposedly jealous of, on his T-shirt while a suicide note recovered from him revealed that he aimed to die with the 16-year-old boy.

Evidently, the shooting was intended to draw attention, with the pathos of someone who has completely shunned any notion of consequence.

In the era of online social networking, it is the real world equivalent of a grim status update.

In principle, the use of most social network sites is restricted to minors.

As seen in the mall shooting and various reports from around the world, however, minors easily sidestep such imposition.

The restrictive policy was set precisely to protect minors from effects of online social networking.

Various experts all around the world had opined that such communication platforms may be an undesirable environment for development of social skills of minors.

For one, the constant and fast-paced exchange of information that often characterizes online social networking has resulted in short attention spans where subscribers are compelled to think that sensational ideas and acts are what it takes to be noticed.

In a report from The Guardian, leading British neuroscientist Susan Adele Greenfield said that children’s experiences on social networking sites “are devoid of cohesive narrative and long-term significance.”

“As a consequence, the mid-21st century mind might almost be infantilized, characterized by short attention spans, sensationalism, inability to empathize and a shaky sense of identity,” she added.

Skewed preferences

According to reports on the tragic mall incident, the 13-year-old boy’s father approached him prior to the episode to talk about his relationship with the 16-year-old boy, but to no avail.

Indeed, the pattern of events leading to the shooting hinted at the discontent toward sober and low-impact self-expression, a dissatisfaction that structures the premise behind online social networking where users strive to solicit the most number of reactions to a post.

The online social network is also an ecology of edgy relationships, where relationship statuses can be changed with the click of a mouse and friends can be immediately “unfriended.”

Greenfield, in the same article, opined that social network sites have “a much more marked preference for the here-and-now, where the immediacy of an experience trumps any regard for the consequences.”

She claimed, moreover, that the sense of identity can be eroded by “fast-paced, instant screen reactions, perhaps the next generation will define themselves by the responses of others.”

Online social networking may also prove harmful to minors who are still in their formative years since it tends to isolate them from their physical social environment.

In an article published by the Royal College of Psychiatrists last year, psychiatrist Dr. Himanshu Tyagi noted, “People used to the quick pace of online social networking may soon find the real world boring and unstimulating, potentially leading to more extreme behavior to get that sense.”

“It may be possible that young people who have no experience of a world without online societies put less value on their real world identities and can therefore be at risk in their real lives, perhaps more vulnerable to impulsive behavior or even suicide,” Tyagi said.

The psychiatrist explained that online social networking has shaped the way people interact with each other that is different from physical social interaction.

Sober self-expression

“If you can’t see the person’s expression or body language or hear the subtle changes in [his] voice, it shapes your perceptions of the interaction differently,” he said.

Tyagi added, “The new generation raised alongside the Internet is attaching an entirely different meaning to friendship and relations, something we are largely failing to notice.”

As seen, the constant drive for attention coupled with the anxieties caused by fast-paced communication platforms such as social network sites has resulted in reliance on sensationalism and has impaired appreciation of consequences by the sites’ users.

While online social networking has indeed revolutionized the way people communicate with each other, it may prove to be a poor environment for minors who are still unrehearsed in the nuances of human relationships and unwary of the value of patient and sober self-expression. –FRANK LLOYD TIONGSON REPORTER, Manila Times