‘George’ spoke about how social media and boredom play a factor in young people getting involved in disorder
A teenager from North Belfast has spoken about how he ended up getting involved in riots last summer and how social media, boredom and following a crowd play a factor in young people taking part in violent disorder.
‘George’, a 15-year-old who is using a fake name to protect his identity, spoke to non-profit organisation Voicing the Void about how he and other young people in his community have found themselves getting involved in disorder. He described the different factors that can lead them to suddenly get involved in riots and how many are just following the crowd and don’t realise the consequences until its too late.
George said there “is not much to do” in the area where he lives and that a lot of free time is spent scrolling through his phone on social media. This means that if there is something going on with a large gathering of people everyone quickly knows about it.
He said: “Someone puts something up on Snapchat. A video, a picture, something happening somewhere. People screen record it, send it on, and before you know it, everyone’s talking about it.
“You don’t really think too much about it. You just go. Not because you know why, just because everyone else is and when loads of people are going somewhere, more people go because they think something big’s going to happen.”
The teenager said that while it can be exciting at times attending these incidents, a lot of it is “standing around watching things burn”.
He said: “At first, it’s nothing, Just groups of people standing around watching and waiting. Then more people come and police start blocking roads and cars get turned away. You can feel something building, like everyone’s waiting for that one moment where it kicks off.
“When it does people just move you don’t really think about it. Sometimes it’s shouting. Sometimes things get thrown. Sometimes it turns into more than that.
“But if I’m being honest, a lot of the time it’s just boring. Standing there watching things burn waiting for something to happen and then going home like nothing really changed. A lot of people there probably don’t even fully understand what they’re getting themselves into. They just think it’s something to do because they’re bored.”
He continued: “When things go too far, it’s not just a bit of excitment anymore cars get damaged and people get caught up in things they didn’t start. Someone’s just trying to do their job, driving through, and suddenly they’re in the middle of it and then there’s the police watching everything with drones in the sky and cameras. People getting identified after it’s all over.”
The teenager says that people say there are a lot of different reasons why people get involved in disorder such as disliking the police or racism. But he feels boredom is a big factor and people wanting to be involved in something a lot of people are taking part in.
Looking back on his involvement in disorder last year George feels differently about his actions saying: “When I think about it now, it doesn’t feel the same as it did at the time. It’s not exciting it’s just… pointless.
“Standing around. Watching things get wrecked and nothing is really gained from it. Then you go home, and it’s just back to normal again.
“Sometimes you don’t realise you’re getting caught up in something until you’re already in it and you don’t think about the why.
“You don’t think about what happens after, you just go because everyone else is going.
“But when it’s over, you start to see it differently and you realise It wasn’t really worth it and maybe if people actually talked to each other more instead of just shouting at each other, things might be different.”
For all the latest news, visit the Belfast Live homepage here and sign up to our daily newsletter here.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login