By Michael Ye
Young adults and teens using social media platforms such as Instagram and YouTube to grab attention and engage in reckless endangerment such as subway surfing caused a rise in fatal accidents in 2023, according to several news accounts.
A recent Daily News article claimed some teenagers involved with reckless endangerment may also be involved in gang-related incidents, causing other commuters to be in the crossfire.
- In the first six months of 2023, there were four teenage deaths related to subway surfing compared to 5 deaths in total from 2018 to 2022. Subway surfing dramatically increased from over 200 instances in 2021 to over 900 instances in 2022.
- Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murphy stated that social media can cause great harm to children and teenagers to their mental health.
- According to a New York Post article in 2022, there was an increase in teenage gun violence in New York City.
Rudy Garnier, 53, majoring in business at York College, said, “It’s because of boredom, looking for excitement, looking for thrills. I think they’re young, and they don’t care about the consequences.”
An NPR report referenced a YouTube video that caught a group of teenage boys making noise on top of a moving 7 Train when one of the boys, whose name is Rey, almost fell into the tracks, and he heard about another boy who fell and died.
Sociology Professor Jacob Apkarian at York College said, “I feel YouTube or Instagram or Facebook is responsible for many different trends, like the ice water challenge from five years ago. And there’s all these different types of things, and some of them can be harmless, but some can be more dangerous.”
In response to the 14-year-old boy’s death from subway surfing in Brooklyn in June, Mayor Eric Adams called out social media platforms to ban videos regarding this dangerous trend. It was reported that TikTok had stated that the trend started before social media and that safety professionals are working to remove harmful content.
A recent New York Times article reported that Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murphy stated that social media could be harmful to children and adolescents’ mental health and well-being. He further urged tech companies to put minimum age limits on social media, set default settings for age appropriateness, and recommended that families have more gatherings for dialogue and bonding.
Brian Hu, 20, a Finance major at York College, said, “They should just use it to communicate with each other instead of making everything a competition about who’s more popular.” When asked about subway surfing, Hu called it “really dumb” and said people shouldn’t risk their lives to get attention on social media.
Teen gun violence
Besides subway surfing, teens are joining gangs to feel secure in New York City, and occasionally, rival gangs see each other on the subways, leading to gun violence. According to an article from the Daily News, a 16-year-old was involved in a subway shooting incident on the 4-train Mt. Eden subway station platform and killed a 35-year-old man, an innocent bystander, who was shot in the chest in a crossfire between a rival gang member who was 14-years-old.
“One of the big trends in recent criminal justice reform is for a restorative justice approach, which is less punitive,” Apkarian said. “The argument is that it doesn’t seem to work if you try to punish people, especially young people. So there has to be a different approach.
“There’s a sociological theory of crime called labeling theory, that once they view themselves as problematic to society, they just come to understand themselves as that’s who they are, that there’s no way I can change, and they will lean into that kind of criminal activity even more.”
A solution to the problem
Many experts suggest that parents can help their children cut back on social media by promoting boundaries and forming good habits. Physical activity and in-person conversations are some examples recommended in the article for teens and parents.
“There are programs that provide social services that keep them active and programs that have been successful where they’ll institute nighttime basketball leagues in rougher neighborhoods, and it has been shown to reduce crime amongst young folks in those neighborhoods,” said Apkarian.
