Social media has brought out society's 'dark side' - principal

A boy tries to protect a girl from being punched and kicked during a fight in Whakatane recently. Photo/File

Social media is exacerbating the amount of fights that occur among teenagers who continue to film and post their shenanigans online.

Police say it didn't appear that fisticuffs between teenagers' was increasing, rather they simply now had a platform to put it on and get their "15 minutes of fame", while a school principal says social media is doing little in creating a positive society.

The issue comes to light after a fight involving a group of Whakatane teens was posted on Facebook last night.

This afternoon it was on its way to amassing 700,000 views.

The youths - some of whom attend Trident and Whakatane High Schools - in that incident had been identified and were being spoken to by police.

Philip Gurney was deputy principal at Trident High School for 16 years before becoming principal in 2014.

He'd witnessed first hand the impact social media had on youth, and it wasn't always pretty.

"Quite honestly, I don't believe that social media has made a very strong, positive contribution to society in general. I think it's helped people to communicate, to friends and family, but the random use of social comments and the silent trolls that have a go at everybody, I think it's brought out a dark side in society."

Gurney said social media made it easy for people to make derogatory comments about people, creating frustration and anger and ultimately a fight.

"So in the past if there was going to be a fight it would have had to have been a personally delivered challenge. Now you can sit at home at 2am or 3am and be the keyboard warrior and challenge all sorts of things.

"Are there more fights? There's the greater opportunity for more fights ... any time there is a fight, of any sort, immediately everyone's cameras are out, they record it and it gets put onto Facebook, so it's become far more visible and gets followed up and you have further repercussions."

However, as a school, there had been seminars held in relation to the Harmful Digital Communications Act - what it means and the fact that they can be charged.

He said the majority of his 1200 students would have been upset to their school portrayed negatively in the media.

When questioned whether fighting amongst teenagers across the country was becoming more prolific, Eastern Bay of Plenty Area youth and community services supervisor Sergeant Thomas Brooks said social media highlighted the issue more.

"The trouble is, it's more visible, that's the thing. These things have happened over time. They'll probably happen in the future, but with the fact they put something on social media it's there for the world to see."

In regards to the incident in Whakatane, police were alerted to the video on Tuesday, allowing the schools and police to get a step ahead before it hit social media. A complaint was yet to be made but police were continuing to work with the school, he said.

However, in general, social media now encourages punch-ups to happen.

"Anecdotally I would have to say this has encouraged things to happen. I'm aware that people post stuff on Facebook ... but now half the town knows.

"It's their 15 minutes of fame ... social media, that highlights it. If it was just, say, a simple disagreement that ended up in fisticuffs, would we know about it before too long? I don't know. But years ago you probably wouldn't have even known about it."