Social media fuelling youth violence crisis – CARPHA

Social media is increasingly fuelling youth violence across the Caribbean, warned CARICOM’s top health official, who described the trend as “a pressing public health issue”.

Dr Lisa Indar, executive director of the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA), said the pervasive reach of digital platforms is undoubtedly increasingly shaping young minds and behaviours in troubling ways.

“Addressing the problem requires that realisation that nowadays kids get angry very quickly, but they have more accessibility to social media that sometimes [involves violence],” she said. “When social media or every show [tells] you the way to relax is to drink, and it’s okay that if you’re angry to just lash out and there are things that are promoting all of that. We have to recognise that this is what the young kids are exposed to.”

Barbados has witnessed a concerning rise in youth-related crime over the past several months, with authorities and community leaders identifying multiple contributing factors and advocating for urgent, coordinated responses.

In late 2024, government expert on crime, Cheryl Willoughby, the director of the Criminal Justice Research and Planning Unit, reported that the average age of people accused of murder over the preceding six months was 17 to 18. With many individuals between 11 and 15 years old being charged with serious offences such as murder and robbery during the same period.

On Wednesday, during the opening day of the conference, CARPHA behavioural specialist Dr Heather Armstrong painted a sobering picture of the mental toll that crime is taking on young people, stating that while violence among youth is on the rise, many of the region’s youth are enduring psychological trauma in silence, without always manifesting visible signs.

Dr Indar stressed that in order to combat digital and social media influence which is breeding unhealthy behaviours, there is need for a holistic response to youth crime, starting with early intervention at home, supported by schools, religious institutions, and government policies that foster healthy emotional wellbeing.

“So now our measures have to start at home. So the home, the church or any type of religion that speaks about how we manage that, because there’s too much violence happening in school and, the systems have to address that. Then at the government levels we have to put measures in place to address that, putting a youth in jail may not be the best thing, but putting them into centres that allows them to address anger issues, anger management, address stress and address depressions, because sometimes you get angry because you’re depressed, you don’t know what’s the cause,” she explained.

Turning her attention to mental health more broadly, Dr Indar joined fellow experts at the conference in calling for a wider and more thorough effort to combat mental health issues in wider society.

While noting that one of the key objectives of this year’s conference is to raise awareness and promote mental health as a top priority, she also wanted to see a focus on bringing support to frontline workers, particularly in a post-COVID world.

“Let me first [say], thanks to all our frontline workers,” she said. “Nobody expected a pandemic, not in our time. It came at us, lots of people got sick in very short order because, you know, it was something new that was being impacted on our lives. So frontline workers were working hours, not even 10, some of them were working 15 and 20 hour days.

“We all know, and I think it transcends all of the frontline workers and all countries, that there’s enough empirical evidence to show that there was the repercussion of burnout and mental stress and wellbeing. What we have been doing is putting in measures in place for promoting that mental health is first issue. That’s the purpose of this conference. This conference is to first build awareness on mental health.”

(SB)