Abstract:

 

The purpose of this paper is to show that the younger generations are growing up with more technology at their fingertips than ever before, this can be seen as a good thing to help the younger generation learn in more fun ways and interact socially more easy, but it is also giving them access to the worlds darkest videos and content which could be desensitising them to violence and death. There is sufficient research that supports this idea of violent media changes the way people act such as a study that looked at “exposure to violent media reduces aid offered to people in pain”(Brad J Bushman, 2009) this is a prime example because in the study it discovered that it does affect the person who watched the violent media, what this means is that if someone is watching violent videos on TikTok and Instagram, what could it be causing “it took longer to help the injured victim, rated the fight as less serious”(brad j bushman, 2009) this evidence has further proven the point of the potential that Instagram and TikTok can have because according to that study, violent videos can change the way someone thinks. In this conference paper I will be focusing on two social media networks which are TikTok and Instagram which are the main source of the violent media showing violence and death.

 

Introduction

 

TikTok and Instagram are two very popular social media apps that almost everyone uses to gather their news and information, both apps show various media and photos, but in these apps, you can have accesses to all sort of violent videos such as street fight videos, videos of shootings and any other violent videos that you can think of. These videos have also been the blame for the crimes committed by younger people because it is glorified on social media “due to the vast amount of violence in the mass media….glorify violence, condone violence and desensitize young, impressionable viewers” ( Toronto star, 2003). The younger generation today usually get their news when they are scrolling through TikTok and these news clips are usually shown within 30 seconds “Social media has made us numb to current events because everything moves so fast online” (Christina Zhu, 2021), this is a very big example of a part of online networks and social change. TikTok and Instagram are showing the younger generation violent content and are making death a joke through videos which are joking about death, this is the first point I will cover, then I will discuss how Instagram and TikTok show more restricted content on their apps and then the final point I will make is how TikTok and Instagram pages contribute to showing the violent videos and desensitising.

 

Death being made into a joke by social media

 

The younger generations latest trend on Instagram and TikTok is to make a mockery of certain celebrities and famous icons deaths, the latest celebrities to be targeted are queen Elizabeth the second and Prince Phillip “Queen Elizabeth II’s death has triggered several reactions on social media, right from mourning to memes”( Hazel Gandhi, 2022), which are two very large leaders which are well known by the public .On TikTok it was almost a trend to be making jokes about the death of these two leaders, mainly created by the American users even companies were making jokes about the death of her majesty the queen posting on “TikTok meme suggesting the Queen would rise from the grave and attack Meghan Markle if she came to say her goodbyes.” (Kieran Press-Reynolds, 2022), this is just one example of the many TikTok’s which were made mocking her death. There were also TikTok trends when prince Philip passed away “people incorporated his death announcement into a trend on TikTok” (Nina Chiang, 2021), people were dancing to the announcement of his death, this is how desensitised this generation has gotten to the point where they are making trends out of people dying. This trend would have been done by hundreds and thousands of people, showing that it is more than just a small minority who find this funny, it is a large population, but there could be reason for this. People who do not live in the UK will not have a closer connection to the royal family especially people in America, according to a study “researchers say that psychological distance can also come from being physically and socially further away from a tragedy”(Matt Soniak, 2015) this can be a factor to consider when seeing these trends is that people do not have any connection to the person they are making jokes about. The latest TikTok trend is going up to your parents and telling them their favourite celebrity has died “record a video while pretending to look at the phone, gasp dramatically, announce a death, and capture the reaction.”( JON BLISTEIN, 2022) this trend is not a good prank, a prank is supposed to make the other person being pranked laugh, but this is just cruel and is another example of the younger generation thinking death is a funny joke, you might think it is a harmless joke played on peoples parents, but what else could this lead too, a prank saying a family member had died, these aren’t good pranks and are just another example of the younger generation being desensitised to death. There are examples of these trends becoming very real such as a trend which was the Slenderman who was a fictional character who resided in the woods and killed people exploring the woods, “2 Wisconsin preteens who had lured their best friend into the woods and stabbed her 19 times. When asked why, these girls reported that the internet meme “Slenderman” drove them to do it” ( Meredith E, et al, 2017). As you can see by this example, the potential of an internet trend can be fatal, this doesn’t mean that this trend will lead to this, but it shows what other trends in the future could lead too.

 

Instagram and TikTok are showing more restricted content

 

On Instagram and TikTok there are videos that are uploaded which can include restricted content, when these videos are posted their will be a warning before you can see the video or image telling you that the content may be disturbing. You can click to proceed watching the content which some people might do out of curiosity. This shows that the content is very easy to have access to with only one warning in place. The company Meta which if you didn’t know are the owners of Instagram, have knowledge that there are these violent videos on the platforms which can include people being hurt, tortured or even killed  “Meta acknowledged the existence of the violent videos but a spokesperson said they were a small percentage of the platform’s total content.”(Taylor Lorenz, 2023), this shows that the company knows about these videos still being uploaded and still have not prevented it from still happening, this is why people still see so many of these videos. The main accounts that are posting these videos are meme pages, I’m sure you all know what meme pages are but if you don’t, they are pages that upload comedy videos, but there are also edgy meme pages which upload more dark videos such as the videos mentioned in my previous paragraph “according to a survey from marketing firm YPulse, 43 percent of 13- to 17-year-olds follow a meme account” (Taylor Lorenz, 2023) why this statistic is relevant Is because will most meme pages will generally post funny videos, but some can post violent videos “While the majority of meme pages don’t engage in such tactics, a sprawling underbelly of accounts competing for views have begun posting increasingly violent content..” (Taylor Lorenz, 2023) The videos that are mainly posted to the edgy meme pages can vary from videos of recent shootings or recent attacks in the news around the world, or they can have no source and just show a person being hurt or killed “In one video, a bloody pig is fed into a meat grinder. It amassed over 223,000 views” (Taylor Lorenz, 2023) this is just one example of the videos you could encounter on Instagram. If so, much of the younger generation is going on their phones every hour and seeing this content in their feed, this is bound to make them desensitised  to it because they are constantly seeing it and it is also being posted on to meme pages which is supposed to be funny content, so the younger generation starts to think that death is funny or enjoy watching it. What this all contributes too in the younger generation is a rise in violence because of the desensitisation they think that the behaviour they see in these videos is fine to do in real life “emotional desensitisation to violence in early adolescence contributes to serious violence in late adolescence.”( Sylvie Mrug, et al , 2018) this study is evidence of violence in early child hood could lead to violence later in life.

 

Instagram and TikTok fight pages contribution

 

When scrolling through Instagram and TikTok you might come across videos of people fighting in the street, this is becoming more popular because there are pages dedicated to fight videos, if you are not sure what one of these pages might look like  they are “user-generated content aggregation pages that publicly host footage of street fights, and other forms of bare-knuckle violence on the popular social networking site”(Mark A.wood, 2016) these videos are desensitising   the young generation to the fights that happen and glorify it as an entertainment source, therefore causing the young generation to film these fights or even start them because they think the only way to solve an altercation is by fighting the other person. When watching the news, you will sometimes see a video of a school fight or teen trying to fight a person in public, what’s contributing to this is these fight pages because it encourages people to film the fights and send them to these pages with thousands of followers. The fight pages a growing faster and it’s because of the increase in violence among the youth and these leads to all of the other previous points that I have made, they all link to the desensitisation  of violence, because the first thing is death being made in to a joke, showing that the youth is already going towards a dark path, then this leads to the youth algorithm to show more of this violent content, If you didn’t know what an algorithm is, it is what is shown in you feed when you open one of these apps and it slowly adjusts to what content you like to watch and will show you more of the content you enjoy (Brent Barnhart, 2021). This is what leads to the next step which is when they enjoy this content so much that they follow the pages posting them such as the meme pages or the accounts posting the fight videos, all of this leads to the desensitisation  in the younger generation.

 

 

 

 

Conclusion

 

 

In conclusion the problem is which I have said multiple times in this paper is that apps like Instagram and TikTok have caused the younger generation to be desensitised to death and violence. In the paper I have shown evidence of the reasons why this is happening to the young generation through jokes being made about people’s deaths, these apps showing more restricted content and people creating pages and accounts dedicated to fighting. I think that the longer we let his go on the worse each generation will get with violence, so this leads to the questions what can we do about it? Will the social media company’s lay down harder restrictions on the content that is allowed to be posted on to their platforms or make it so if you are under 18 you will not be able to see the restricted content that is being posted to the pages. I personally think that they will have to eventually crack down on all these issues due to the increase in youth violence all around the world because this may not be the only source that is causing the violence, but it is one of the main factors contributing to it. Overall, these factors can be fixed very easily by acting against Instagram and TikTok, do you think that the problem can be fixed?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References

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• Bushman, B. J., & Anderson, C. A. (2009). Comfortably Numb: Desensitizing Effects of Violent Media on Helping Others. Psychological Science, 20(3), 273–277. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40575012

• Caitlin Elsaesser Assistant Professor of Social Work. (2022, December 21). How social media turns online arguments between teens into real-world violence. The Conversation. Retrieved April 2, 2023, from https://theconversation.com/how-social-media-turns-online-arguments-between-teens-into-real-world-violence-155613

• Media violence desensitizing young viewers: [Ontario Edition]. (2003, Nov 11). Toronto Star https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/media-violence-desensitizing-young-viewers/docview/438654410/se-2

• Mrug, S., Madan, A., & Windle, M. (2015). Emotional desensitization to violence contributes to adolescents’ violent behavior. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 44(1), 75–86. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-015-9986-x
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• Meredith E. Gansner, M. D. (n.d.). “The internet made me do it”-social media and potential for violence in adolescents. Psychiatric Times. Retrieved April 23, 2023, from https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/-internet-made-me-do-itsocial-media-and-potential-violence-adolescents
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