KMT 2014 nr 3 Download PDF

Paweł Ochwat

Happy Slapping as a Factor Triggering Dysfunctional Behaviour of Adolescents

Cite: Paweł Ochwat, Happy slapping jako czynnik aktywizujący zachowania dysfunkcyjne młodzieży, "Kultura - Media - Teologia", 2014( 18) nr 3, s. 43-59.

DOI: 10.21697/kmt.18.3

Despite some obvious benefits from the development of the Internet and modern communication technologies, their excessive usage carries some threats. These are among others: contacts with inappropriate contents (pornography, information on psychoactive drugs, etc), electronic aggression or exposition to sexual abuse. The phenomenon of happy slapping is a specific type of electronic aggression. A typical act of happy slapping includes two stages. In the first phase the offender provokes the victims e.g. by hitting them or offending them. The whole situation is recorded by the offender or the other person with a mobile phone. Then the material (film or photos) is published on the Internet or distributed electronically in other ways. This trend spread to Great Britain from the United States in 2001. Gradually trivial scenes started to be displaced with more and more sophisticated and risky ones. Finally, scenes of violence were recorded and spread. Thus in the poor districts of London happy slapping, making short films to put them on the Internet, was born. Numerous researches (including the present author’s) reveal that the fashion for happy slapping does not pass; on the contrary, it is still very popular along with other forms of electronic aggression. The sources of electronic aggression are not homogenous. They can be sought in human inclination towards aggressive behaviours in general, new possibilities given by modern communication technologies as well as in decreasing level of empathy among the generation of Internet Natives.

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Dr Paweł Ochwat

ORCID: (nieznany)