Social Media Toxicity and Its Fallout Harming Adolescence

The success of the series has started a discussion that should have started years ago. It will take a long time and a lot of positivity to clean the sludge

- DEEPA GAHLOT

A few years ago, there was some outrage over the discovery of a WhatsApp group by schoolboys in Delhi on which they were sharing horribly misogynistic content about girls. Like an earlier instance of a schoolboy sharing an inappropriate video of a girl, effectively wrecking her life, while suffering no permanent consequences himself, this one, too, was quickly forgotten.

Now a show titled Adolescence on Netflix has thrown a grenade into the already escalating concerns about social media toxicity that is harming an entire generation of kids. Even freedom of expression advocates are shouting for controls over unlimited internet access to minors. Because like Jamie (played by Owen Cooper) in the show, directed by Philip Barantini, boys are being instigated to hate women (or gays, Blacks, or any ‘other’), and the result is the increase of violent crimes against females by underage boys.

Thirteen-year-old Jamie kills Katie, a female classmate, by repeatedly stabbing her, an act caught on CCTV camera, because she rebuffed his advances. She also called him an incel (involuntary celibate) on Instagram, which is an insult, implying that no woman would want him. That caused such a storm of rage and self-loathing in Jamie that he murdered her.