Scrolling into submission
Written by Wesley Kraan
In 2015, A seventeen-year-old former honour student in Virginia pled guilty in federal court to using X (formerly Twitter) to radicalise fellow youth into joining ISIS (Giusto & Cloherty, 2015). Clearly, anyone can be indoctrinated. In addition, young adults and children are particularly prone to internalising external influences, yet they are often granted unrestricted access to the internet: the place where extremists couldn’t be more prevalent (Belsky & Pluess, 2009). I, for example, was allowed social media access at 12 years old, right before adolescence. However, it is during adolescence that our susceptibility to extremist ideologies is heightened. The sharp, polarising, distinction between right and wrong, us versus them, is incredibly appealing to an adolescent mind while on the quest of shaping its identity (Harpviken, 2019). While social media bans are controversial, the risk of child indoctrination through social media is serious enough to warrant a ban of social media for children. First, I’ll explain that children have an increased risk of being indoctrinated, compared to adults, before proceeding to argue that social media exacerbates the risk of indoctrination.
Indoctrination can be understood as inducing “a person or group to accept a set of beliefs uncritically” (Copp, 2016, p. 152), hence undermining one’s ability to assess a belief thoroughly (Armstrong, 2022). Indoctrination often reinforces a dangerous ‘us versus them’ narrative, which sows hatred against those considered outsiders (Koch, 2024). We live in an ever-globalising world, where beliefs and cultures mingle and merge. If we wish to live in a peaceful world, we must be open to those other beliefs, which starts by being reflective upon one’s own worldview. Indoctrination eliminates this ability of assessment, fuelling polarisation, and thereby creating a dangerous society.
Children run an increased risk of indoctrination, because of their inherent internalisation of external influences, especially when a narrative is presented as unshakable. It is commonly known that childhood is the age of learning, of internalising what those around you tell you (Voigtländer & Voth, 2015). In fact, information taught during the sensitive period – the early period when one is particularly receptive to new information – has shown to have strong effects in adult life (Penhune, 2011). When children are given a narrative, an external influence, they will shape their identity around it, once it has been repeated often enough (Khoo & Brown, 2021). In fact, repeated narratives become entrenched in the mind, making them extremely difficult to alter (Lakoff, 2014).
The lasting dangers of child indoctrination are portrayed by the Hitler Youth, who were indoctrinated since they started school. While the military capitulated in 1945, the Hitler Youth wanted to continue fighting a lost war. They had been taught to show courage, never to quit. They had been exclusively indoctrinated with Nazi values, thus turning its narrative into the lens through which they perceived the world. After the war, they were lost without an authoritarian leader to guide them, and they resisted the democratisation process from the allies. Günter Grass, a member of the Hitler Youth as a prisoner of war in France, later reported it took him three decades to be able to “write or speak about German guilt and responsibility [for the Holocaust]” (Fox, 2016, p. 50).
Furthermore, Rieger et al. (2013) found that both ISIS and far-right extremists rely on indoctrinating the youth for their continued existence, suggesting that child indoctrination is necessary for the survival of extremism. Therefore, to weaken extremism, we must cut off their youth-supply line.
Social media is a practical means to attract this youth-supply line, and has rapidly been embraced by extremists as a favourable platform to indoctrinate their next generation of members. Extremists generally have three communication goals: legitimisation, propagation, and intimidation. While the last purpose is aimed at their enemies, indoctrinators aim to validate their views and persuade new members through the first two goals (Rieger et al., 2013). Once a social media user has interacted with an extremists’ post, the algorithm will force them into a rabbit hole of that extremist ideology, one that is difficult to escape (Guess et al., 2023). Through repetition of a radical narrative the view will entrench itself in the user’s mind, ultimately becoming unshakable (Lakoff, 2014).
Extremist groups have developed specific ways of utilising social media to attract potential new members. ISIS tends to victimise themselves online, as they receive immense international backlash, ultimately turning criticism into their strongest asset to attract new members (Khoo & Brown, 2021). Meanwhile, far-right extremists commonly create entertaining content intertwined with their cultural code and lifestyle, hereby covertly promoting their lifestyle and political activities (Rieger et al., 2013). In the same vein, before the last parliamentary elections, Dutch far-right politician Thierry Baudet livestreamed himself playing Minecraft, in a clear attempt to reach the Dutch youth through content creation on social media (Parlementaire Monitor [Parliamentary Monitor], 2023).
In my own experience, far-right online entertainment can be difficult to discern from regular content. I have many friends who have fallen prey to it. Without noticing they had fallen into the far-right rabbit hole through videos on Instagram or TikTok. Once, someone sent me an Instagram video and I had to respond: “Please tell me you’re aware this is right-wing propaganda?”, and no, he was not.
Advocates of social media access claim that it provides children with important skills, yet these same benefits can be provided through different means. Common examples of advantages are improved communication, information gathering skills, and developing technological abilities (Tartari, 2015). However, these skills can be acquired elsewhere. My high school offered cyber awareness and fake news identification workshops. These workshops contributed to information gathering skills and helped to develop technological abilities. Moreso, I believe conducting research aided my skills more than social media. Furthermore, social media is not necessary to develop online communication skills either. Rather, children and adolescents should communicate through messenger apps like WhatsApp, or preferably Signal. Banning children from social media does not mean cutting them off from the internet, which has been proven to be beneficial for children’s development (Rachmanyani, 2017). In the end, the benefits of social media can be acquired elsewhere, while children and adolescents do run significant risk of indoctrination. Oftentimes they don’t even notice they are being indoctrinated by dangerous beliefs and worldviews. Once the algorithm has locked them inside a rabbit hole it is incredibly difficult to escape, after which the narrative portrayed by extremists becomes entrenched in their minds. To protect the next generation members of our society we must shield them from the dangers of social media by banning them from these dangerous websites and apps. Extremism based on hatred has no place in our globalising society, as it reinforces the self-centered ‘us versus them’ narrative and leads our youth to believe they should “let the whole world go up in flames, as long as I alone am comfortable.” (Dostoyevsky, 2003, p. 888).
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