Social media plays an outsized role in shootings impacting young people, a recent report shows.
Researchers at the University of Virginia conducted dozens of interviews with children and adults to better understand how gun violence impacts Virginians and explore the causes of youth and community gun violence in the state.
Their findings, published in November, included that social media plays a “a pervasive and insidious role” in community gun violence and fear is a primary motivator for why young people carry guns.
The report lays out several solutions, including funding violence intervention programs, creating a state office of gun violence prevention and strengthening Virginia’s safe storage laws.
Social media’s impacts on young people have been covered from several angles, especially related to mental health. But this study is a good entry point for reporters looking to cover how social media contributes to violence among young people.
Some questions that could lead to stories:
- Has social media been a factor in gun violence in your community? If so, in what way?
- Talk to young people; what are they seeing?
- Is local law enforcement aware of this issue?
- Are there any programs for addressing the connection between gun violence and social media in your community? Not necessarily just from law enforcement, but also from community groups, nonprofits, schools, parent associations, etc.
- Are pediatricians and emergency medicine doctors concerned about social media’s role in violence?
Four key questions
For their report, researchers conducted interviews with 58 community-based youth and adults “with firsthand knowledge of youth gun violence in Virginia to investigate their perspectives on the issue,” the report reads. They focused their interviews around four key research questions:
- Which changes brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic are still present in youths’ lives, and how do they continue to shape gun violence risk?
- How might social media contribute to youth gun violence?
- In what ways do fear and perceived threats influence youth to carry or use guns?
- What tools and resources can help young people feel safe enough not to carry guns?
Pandemic, social media impacts
One major finding was that the pandemic’s impact continues to be felt by the community members researchers interviewed.
“While much of Virginia likely experiences one reality — the pandemic is mostly over, young people feel safe on the streets, and schools are robustly attended — a handful of communities experience the opposite,” researchers wrote.
“The pandemic’s negative impacts continue to this day, social media is playing a sinister and insidious role in community gun violence, and too many young people don’t feel safe enough in their communities to resist the urge to carry a gun,” they added.
For example, the stresses of the pandemic intensified all the problems young people were already facing. The pandemic lockdowns also “atomized neighborhoods and separated people from each other, leading to a breakdown in the kind of informal monitoring and mentoring relationships with young people that can deter gun violence,” researchers wrote.
They also said some of the youth services and safe gathering spaces they used to rely on before COVID-19 shut down or became harder to access during the pandemic and never fully reopened to normal operations.
The study also identified three primary and negative impacts of social media on rates of gun violence in Virginia.
Social media saturates young people with images of violence, information on getting and even building guns and overall celebration of guns and gun culture. They learned that the social media sites push that content based on the kids’ usage, content and algorithms.
Social media can also create a perception that everyone has a gun, which convinces young people that they need their own gun.
It’s also a vehicle for public threats, embarrassment, challenges and provocation that often directly leads to gun violence. Social media is too often a “a tool to accelerate and aggravate conflict, threats, and public shaming, leading to community gun violence,” the report reads.
As one 25-year-old told researchers: “A lot of people are goading it on. It’s like stepping into a coliseum and now you either the lion or you the gladiator.”
Resources
There are several gun violence prevention organizations that often specifically focus on the impacts on children. Those groups include:
- Everytown for Gun Safety, a nonprofit that advocates for stronger policies to prevent firearm violence, endorses “gun sense” candidates and supports research on the causes of firearm violence and solutions. The group was formed in 2013 by merging Mayors Against Illegal Guns and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America.
- Moms Demand Action is the nonprofit founded by Shannon Watts after the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012. The organization advocates for stronger firearm safety measures and pushes for stronger state and federal laws on guns. The group is a part of Everytown for Gun Safety and has a chapter in every state and Washington, D.C.
- Sandy Hook Promise is a nonprofit founded and led by several family members who lost loved ones killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School on Dec. 14, 2012, in Newtown, Conn. The group’s intention is to honor all victims of gun violence and encourage meaningful action to prevent gun violence.
