Globally, the World Health Organization estimates that about 193,000 homicides occur annually among people ages 15-29 — about 40 percent of all homicides. For every young person killed, many more survive violence severe enough to require medical treatment.
Likewise, a United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime study makes one thing clear: Youth violence does not have a single geography or a single cause. It ranges from family killings to gang violence, organized crime and community violence.
A systematic review covering 44 countries found that acquaintances — peers and, as Philippine investigators are probing, possible online “groomers” — were the largest perpetrator group for adolescent homicides, accounting for a median 36.9 percent.
So what does social media have to do with it? Quite a lot — but perhaps not in the way we would like to think.
A 2024 Youth Endowment Fund survey of 10,000 teenagers in England and Wales found that 70 percent had encountered real-world violence online. Fifty-six percent had seen fights involving young people; 35 percent had seen weapons content; and 33 percent had seen gang-related material.
Among teenagers who had perpetrated violence, nearly two-thirds said social media played a role. That may not prove social media creates killers. It may suggest something as unsettling: The internet can amplify violence that already exists offline.
The old ingredients remain — guns, knives, gangs, family dysfunction, poverty, bullying, delinquent peers and weak supervision. But the digital world adds an accelerant: Violence can be displayed, copied, glorified, threatened, shared and even livestreamed.
Governments are responding in markedly different ways. Australia now bars platforms from allowing under-16s to maintain accounts, while Malaysia and Turkey have moved toward similar age restrictions. France approved an under-15 measure, only for its Constitutional Council to block it this month.
Britain is combining age restrictions with rules on harmful content and algorithms, while Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Italy and Germany are pursuing varying combinations of age limits and parental consent. China, meanwhile, has emphasized a “minor mode” that regulates screen time, content and access rather than relying solely on an age cutoff.
And this is where parents cannot be left out of the conversation. Curbing youth violence is not solely a job for schools, social media platforms or government. Parents and guardians have a role in knowing what children are watching, whom they are talking to, what games they are playing and what behavior they are absorbing online.
Guidance cannot begin after a child gets into trouble; it has to begin at home.
