Is Your Teen Safe Online? What ‘Adolescence’ Reveals About Internet Culture

Adolescence is a British crime drama, a mini-series released in 2025 written by Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham and directed by Philip Barantini. Starring was done by Owen Cooper. The movie has become talk of the town for its singleshot (each episode is a separate single shot). This series contain just four episodes. It’s a thriller with psychological aspects that speak about the impact of social media on adolescence. 

Adolescence 

The movie starts with a police raid at Jamie’s home in front of his family members i.e. father (Eddie), mother (Manda) and her elder sister (Lisa). They arrest Jamie on suspicion of committing a murder and take him under remand for investigation. Jamie was arrested and taken to a cell and Eddie was accepted as Jamie’s appropriate adult (one who stays during the investigation when the suspect is under 18 years of age).

The Interrogation begins, Eddie asks in private whether Jamie committed the crime but he denies and claims innocence, which he also trusted. In interrogation, Jamie refused to accept that he was guilty. Later, the police showed the evidence of him posting photos of models and comments on Instagram. Later, Eddie felt despair about Jamie’s release. In the second episode, the interrogation took place in the school depicting the student’s rude behavior towards the police and showing their grief in the form of anger.

The police find that they are on the wrong track after they come to know that the victim is the one who bullied Jamie and that provoked him to commit murder. In the third episode, the psychologists visit Jamie to take assessments. And found out that the cyberbullying started with sharing Katie’s (victim) nude photos among the boy’s groups. This episode showed the aggressive side of Jamie and how the psychologists handled him in such circumstances.

The last episode, it’s all about the parents of Jamie who feel guilty about not knowing about Jamie’s practice online. They felt they failed to do their duty as a parent and console each other. This episode clearly depicted the struggles faced by the family of the accused. 

This movie portrays the impact that smartphones have on the adolescent age group. Smartphones provoke someone to be involved in cybercrime and the other person to become a victim of it. Let’s explore why such things happen online. 

The first and foremost relationship advice by every psychologist is to avoid fighting or argument via text messages. Do you know why they say that? It’s because of something important called the “online disinhibition effect”. It says that many people act more frequently or intensely rudely when they are online than when they are in person. This happens because of disinhibition.

Disinhibition refers to the reduction or removal of social, emotional and behavioural restraints often leading to actions that are more impulsive, spontaneous or less restrained than usual. We may think that the result of disinhibition is the true self of the individual. However, researchers say that the aggressive or impulsive act they perform is not from their true selves, instead they are the momentary tapping into different sets of feelings and thoughts that differ from their usual face-to-face situations. This shift in self may involve combinations of emotions and thoughts that create a new way of expressing themselves but it isn’t necessarily the true self of an individual. 

Read More: The Psychology behind Aggressive Behaviour

Online Disinhibition Effect 

People online often say things that they do not when they are in person. They loosen up, feel less restrained and express themselves more openly without restrictions based on their morals or values. Disinhibition works in two opposing directions. One is they reveal secret emotions, wishes, and fear, and show unusual acts of kindness and generosity, which is called benign disinhibition. And the other one is showing very aggressive and impulsive behaviours. They may act rudely, use harsh language, and hatred and even threaten others. And may visit the dark side of the internet like pornography, watching violent videos and real-life crimes. They are called toxic disinhibition. 

Six factors contribute to the online disinhibition effect. They are 

• Dissociative anonymity 
• Invisibility 
• Asynchronicity 
• Solipsistic introjection 
• Dissociative imagination 
• Minimization of authority 

1. Dissociative Anonymity 

People have the opportunity to hide their real identity online, which gives them the courage to act out their restrained behaviour. They may feel less vulnerable and self-disclosing and acting out. 

2. Invisibility 

The invisibility gives the courage to act in certain ways online that they don’t do otherwise. Even if the identity is known, the act of physical invisibility fosters disinhibition effect. 

3. Asynchronicity 

For every email or text one does, the communication is asynchronous. i.e. the people don’t interact in real-time they may take hours to months to reply. This gives rise to an opportunity that we do not need to face the immediate response. One can delay and read the response once they are cool enough to handle it. 

4. Solipsistic Introjection 

The absence of face-to-face interactions can alter the self-boundaries. When chatting, while reading the text, consciously or unconsciously we subvocalize (hear the voice of the other person). Even if we don’t know the voice of the other person, we may introduce the voice we see in cartoons or any other fictional characters, from their past relationship or even their voice. In their imagination, they feel no inhibition to act out things that they don’t do in reality. 

5. Dissociative Imagination 

They may feel that the imaginary characters created were living in a separate world and also apart from the demands and responsibilities of the real world. They create a split between online dissociation and offline fact.

6. Minimization of Authority 

Usually, people feel no courage to speak or express themselves with the authority figure in person. But online, we don’t have a hierarchy and everyone is considered the same. The appearance of authority is reduced and have a high chance of misbehaving and speaking out. 

The Internet Made Me Do It 

Many of us might come across this either in memes or your friends saying it funnily. This phrase became popularized in the early 2000s. From the incident of four students who tried to escape from the hostel to earn like the fictional character Bhaskar from Lucky Bhaskar movie, to two girls in the US 12 years of age who killed their friend, who is also 12.

The astonishing thing is that they gave a reason, Slenderman made us do so and they did so to prove that Slenderman is real. But which is a fictional character in real? The memes of Slenderman were once popular in the social media. The reason for this kind of behaviour is the internet. Researcher says that adolescents who are involved in crime have spent more time watching violent videos online.

This, leads to copycat violence, in a similar way to copycat suicide. Children learn by observing, that’s what we call modelling. It can be from the media, parents or other significant members of one’s life. This movie depicted the modelling of Jamie from his father the aggressive behavior. Adolescence performs what they witness. Adolescence feels a thin line between the reality and the social media. Sometimes it’s blurred out among adolescents. That led to the problematic internet behaviour. 

Read more: The Psychology Behind Copy Cat Crimes

The Late Prefrontal Cortex 

Adolescence is the age group between 11-20. They undergo a lot of physical, emotional and cognitive changes in their life. Our brain structure grows from the back of the head towards the front, which means the cerebellum and other parts in the back side of the brain grow first. Later, the prefrontal cortex fully matures at the age of 25, which leads to wrong decisions an adolescent may end up in life. The prefrontal cortex is responsible for executive functions like problem-solving, decision making etc. The smartphones growing gulf between the parents and children. Parents who practice good parenting style also miss out on watching their children’s online activities. 

How Can We Prevent Cybercrimes, As a Parent? 

Most of the cybercrime happens because of the lack of sex education. Sex education can be provided in order to prevent such harassment, and stalking occurring online. Adolescence undergoes a lot of changes in physical and mental health. And they have developed a curiosity to learn about the opposite gender. That put them under the circumstances to perform such acts. So, providing sex education can be helpful. 

• Nowadays, both genders objectify the opposite gender which leads to involvement in violent behaviour. 
• Prolonged mobile phone usage, withdraw oneself from real life. Monitor what your children see online. 
• Make them understand the emotions of the opposite gender and teach them to respect others as themselves.
• Practice empathy at home.