The psychological significance of online conflict was particularly important because social media could amplify existing adolescent vulnerabilities, including sensitivity to peer judgement, fear of exclusion and concern over reputation.
PETALING JAYA: A generation raised with near-constant digital access may be processing conflict in fundamentally different ways than before, as online humiliation and unfiltered exposure intensify emotions once contained within school walls.
University of Nottingham Malaysia School of Psychology associate professor Dr Siti Khadijah Zainal Badri said the issue could not be reduced to violent entertainment alone, pointing instead to a combination of unsupervised digital use, inappropriate content, limited parental guidance and changing social environments.
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She said previous generations also encountered violence and inappropriate content but their exposure was generally more limited by fewer screens, scheduled television and greater separation between home life and what happened outside.
“It is therefore not necessarily the existence of these influences that is new, but the different dynamics, intensity, accessibility and persistence of exposure within children’s surrounding environments.”
Her comments come amid renewed concern over violence involving Malaysian schoolchildren, with several high-profile cases reported over the past year.
Siti Khadijah said today’s children could have considerably greater freedom and private access to digital content, with exposure potentially becoming continuous and difficult for adults to observe.
“We are now looking at a generation growing up in an accelerated age of technology that has shifted both parents’ and children’s mindsets in how they live and approach daily life.
“Technology has evolved much faster than our collective wisdom about how children should live with it.”
She pointed to limited parental control over digital exposure, poor integration of technology into healthy routines and weak modelling of technological boundaries by adults as factors that could contribute to the problem.
However, Siti Khadijah stressed that responsibility did not rest with parents alone, saying schools, communities, technology platforms and policymakers also have roles in establishing healthier boundaries.
She said the psychological significance of online conflict was particularly important because social media could amplify existing adolescent vulnerabilities, including sensitivity to peer judgement, fear of exclusion and concern over reputation.
“Online humiliation doesn’t change the nature of adolescent psychology, but it changes how quickly conflict escalates and amplifies its effects because technology is designed to accelerate impact,” she said.
A humiliating incident that might once have been witnessed by a small group could now be recorded, circulated and repeatedly revisited, potentially making the emotional consequences more difficult for a teenager to escape.
“For some kids, this may create a stronger urgency to retaliate, restore their social standing or save face, particularly when they feel they are being watched or judged by their peers,” she said.
However, she stressed that understanding these psychological pressures should never be confused with excusing violent behaviour.
“When an ordinary conflict escalates into potentially lethal violence, I see that as a major failure signal not only of emotional regulation, but also of moral restraint, empathy and consequence-awareness that should stop anger from becoming irreparable harm.”
She said violent entertainment by itself was insufficient to explain realworld violence, noting that strong adult guidance could help children distinguish entertainment from acceptable behaviour in real life.
Instead, she said adults should pay attention to a combination of factors, including difficult family dynamics, chronic neglect or lack of supervision, exposure to violence, persistent emotional difficulties, peer pressure, social isolation and peer groups that normalised aggression.
She said repeated or escalating aggression should not simply be dismissed as a phase of teenage rebellion.
“Children and teenagers are human beings with fundamental needs to be loved, connected, guided and to feel that they belong.
When their behaviour changes significantly, adults should look beyond the behaviour itself and ask what may be happening underneath it, what needs are not being met and whether they have received sufficient support for their emotional and moral development.