Does Social Media Encourage Violent Teen Behavior?

Jan 16, 2013

Just as India is reeling in the aftermath of the mindless Gangrape of the Delhi Braveheart; US is too going through a similar heart-burn and contemplation of its own societal situation after the Steubenville gang rape incident. This is some of the information on the rape case. (Also read Lessons of Steubenville)

First brought to national attention by a New York Times story in December, the alleged rape involves a girl from a neighboring town in West Virginia who became so drunk and incapacitated at a string of beer-and-vodka parties on a late summer night last year that the boys who taunted, cheered and urinated on her as two high school football players allegedly raped her referred to her as “the dead body” or the dead girl in play-by-play accounts shared on social media. One reportedly sent to her father a screen grab of the girl, her hands and feet held by young men.

Two examples of tweets now in evidence and supposedly posted by boys at the parties: “you don’t sleep through a wang in the butthole” and “some people deserve to be peed on.” In one disturbing 12-minute video uploaded anonymously online, one party goer calls the girl “deader than Caylee Anthony” and “OJ Simpson’s wife” … “She is so raped right now,” he says to the camera. “There won’t be any foreplay for a dead girl. It ain’t wet now, to be honest. Trust me, I’m a doctor.” (Link)

The reason why it came out was because of some excellent “hacking” work done by the Anonymous group to get the video of the whole thing and post it on the internet. Here is an interesting discussion from NPR, where the impact of Social Media is discussed on the Violent behavior of the teens. Does Social Media Encourage Violent Teen Behavior?