The other morning I was listening to Matt Woodley on Radio Devon and they were discussing recent statistics that point to a fall in juvenile crime and violent crime as a whole across the county. One of the explanations they put forward for this and that was echoed in the national media was the rise of social media, facebook, twitter etc. and peoples growing engagement with it. Basically, they were saying taht maybe youngsters were preferring to stay in and chat on the internet or hang about gawping at smart phones, tweeting each other rather than necking down bottles of Natch before going out and causing merry havoc. Of course mobile phones and the demise of the phone box have probably led to a reduction or more likely dispersion of crime in our towns and villages as it's customary epi-centre in the community loses it's significance in the lives of rural youth. Even the bus stop has become less accommodating in these financially reduced times. Being a relatively early adopter, for someone of my age and background, and keen advocate of social media this line of thinking took my interest. However, over the past few weeks a succession of stories in the crime columns of our local newspapers do little to suggest that this maybe the case in North Devon.
On a Thursday lunchtime at the Lunch Club,(which is now being held at The Reform due to Annie Cawoods ex-son-in-law Baz Bovey being released from prison and with his cronies taking over the Marshals) we enjoy pouring over the pages of The Gazette and The Journal and they never fail to provide us with a couple of hours of communal interest, anecdote and discussion and we have noted over the last couple of weeks a rash of crime stories have appeared which have cited Facebook as being a partial culprit. Amoungst them there was the bloke in Bideford who smashed up his girlfriend's laptop by throwing it at her after seeing a photo of her with an ex-boyfriend on one of his mates Facebook albums. He didn't like this.
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| Facebook rage- growing problem in North Devon |
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This was followed, on the same page I seem to recall, by the sad tale of the unfortunate woman who after receiving poisonous comments on Facebook decided to get blathered and was found at 2.30 am on Bideford Quay in her car a gnashing and a wailing and clearly over the limit. Less pathetically, The Gazette reported a few weeks back how the Venue nightclub's Facebook page had come under sustained attack from cyber trolls who were leaving rather unflattering comments underneath the pretend paparazzi/VIP photos of the club's pouting and gurning clientele. Of course, this caused quite a large amount of distress as these youngsters look like they take themselves very seriously in their attempts to look exactly the same.
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| The Venue - Sustained troll attack |
It seems to me that rather than some people going out and causing trouble they have shifted their focus and now seem content to provide the catalyst for chaos, offence and upset via pages of social media. This is not reflected in the crime statistics, Of course there are many vulnerable disaffected people out there who sadly need little excuse to fall foul of the law but social media seems to have provided their solicitors with further mitigating circumstances for their actions.
This sort of thing is nothing new I remember Granny Furse telling me about the terrible time Granfer had back before he war when poison pen letters went round the village questioning the contents of the feed for his prized poultry. Some malevolent soul would leave little defamatory notelets around the place, in the pub on the shovehappeny board, on the churchyard gates or tacked to the cricket pitch roller claiming that his bantams were cannibals! This drove Granfer absolutely mazed and he sought solace in the cider. He never got to the bottom of it but of course he had his suspicions and our family have never shopped in the Post Office ever since!
