Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1510993
5 NEWS maltatoday | SUNDAY • 5 NOVEMBER 2023 KARL AZZOPARDI IT'S a story which has spanned for hundreds of years. Elder generations have consistently criticised the succeeding ones for supposedly lacking princi- ples and values. A quote widely attributed to Socrates, the ancient Greek phi- losopher goes as follows: "The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disre- spect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the serv- ants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room." The debate on how youth in Malta have degenerated lifted its head once again, as vide- os of young people, labelled as "gangs" by certain sections of the media, fighting each other in Valletta made their way to people's mobile screens. The videos led to more videos of young teens fighting in the capital making the rounds. MaltaToday reached out to Youth and Community studies lecturer Maria Pisani, who un- derlined the complexities in un- derstanding youth violence. "The challenge lies in holding this complexity together. So- ciological research on youth violence and gang subcultures goes back more than a hundred years, so youth violence is noth- ing new," she said. Pisani said her interests lie in understanding behaviour la- belled as 'deviant' as a product of the broader social environ- ment, rather than as an example of moral deprivation or some kind of psychological disorder located in the individual young person. "Exposure to violence, wheth- er its online, in any physical space, or indeed the interplay between the two, has a negative effect on young peoples' men- tal health, their relationships with families and friends, and on their academic and work performance – this is obvious- ly well known. As such it is, and should remain, a matter of deep concern," she said. She said such incidences should be interpreted as some kind of degeneration of, or defi- cit in contemporary youth. "Likewise, a knee jerk response that seeks to 'reform' or disci- pline young people is also prob- lematic. Whilst youth violence is not new, and the research on young people, social media and violence already goes back 20 years, I think we are all strug- gling to understand how these relatively new technologies af- fects the lives of young people today. I also believe young peo- ple are, in many ways, also best positioned to understand these challenges," she said. The need to strengthen men- tal health services in Malta's schools Malta Union of Teachers Pres- ident Marco Bonnici believes that the onset of social media has changed the way bullying is being carried out. "While bullying used to hap- pen at schools or catechism classes and end there, nowadays that bullying continues on so- cial media and through video games," he said. He added that following the COVID-19 pandemic, educa- tors have seen higher levels of anxiety and frustration among students. "We have systems in place to provide services for mental health, and they are working. The issue we face is the short- age of professionals in the coun- try, it is literally an issue of hu- man resource. You have people who are referred to a profes- sional two/three months after they raise their concern, rather than it being two/three weeks," Bonnici said. Baby-gang bother: social media hypes up troublesome teens Maria Pisani and Marco Bonnici