Even though the internet has eased out lives out, the future seems to be difficult, as its addiction is making people ill, and is giving impetus to the development of new crimes. As a matter of fact, the young generation, which is stuck in the web of social media in the world of internet, is now finding cyber-crime comfortable, and believes that witnessing trolling, bullying, hate-speech, and porn on the internet is normal. Many a times, in the cyber world, they commit crimes which they themselves are not aware about.
It has been found out through research on the youth of 9 countries in Europe that the situation is bad here, nevertheless, in Britain, the number of teenagers and youth finding cyber-crime normal, is less than other countries. The European Union conducted research on 8000 youths aged between 16 and 19, and it was discovered that in the last one year, every fourth of the youth had trolled someone or the other on the internet.
Every third youth was found to be engaged in digital piracy, and it was found out that every eighth youth had harassed someone online. As per statistics, 10% of the youth is involved in hacking, 20% in vulgar chats, and 40% of the youth watch porn indiscriminately and do not find it to be wrong. Julia Davidson, Professor, criminology, University of East London, and the co-author of this study, has said that a large number of youths in Europe is committing one cyber-crime or the other, and it has become so common that the feeling of doing something wrong has vanished amongst them.
She added that 75% of the boys are involved in cyber-crime, and girls are also not too far behind as far as online crimes are concerned, with 65% of the girls involved in the same. In most of the European countries, hacking, money laundering, and sharing intimate pictures without consent come under the category of crime. Despite this, the youth is involved in all these activities without a sense of fear. Among the countries involved in the study, the highest number of youths involved in cyber-crime is in Spain.
Spain is followed by Romania, the Netherlands, and Germany. The youth are spending most of the time on YouTube, Instagram, WhatsApp, Tik Tok, and Snapchat. In the UK, an online safety bill was introduced but a law could not be made.
