ATIKA BINTI ISHAK 1015168 LE 4000 SECTION 16

SOCIAL NETWORKS AS THE MEANS TO CREATE CRIMINALS

Introduction

Background of Study

Humans are special. They are able to support each other, to produce and invent something
but they also can harm each other and the environment. Eric Schmidt said, “Internet is the first
thing that humanity has built that humanity doesn’t understand, the largest experiment in anarchy
that we have ever had”. Internet gives us the amazing way through social networking sites to
socialize with others and use them to fulfill our needs and desires. Winder (2008) discovered that
online identity allowed one’s to explore more boundaries and test in which what one’s can and
can’t do in social situations. Online identity that one’s create in his or her social networking sites
can influence and shape what is and who is he or she today. All crimes that happened in virtual
world can show us how social networks create criminals.

Statement of Problem

Nowadays, almost everyone has social networking sites for instance Facebook.com, Twitter,
YouTube, MySpace and others. This fact also makes everyone possible to become the criminals
or the victims of cyber crimes because social networking sites are surprisingly insecure. Not only
that, various facilitators such as violent and pornography videos and games are easy to be found
in social networking sites.

This study aims to look into the aspect of human reaction to information, advertisements and
entertainments that they are obtained via social networking sites. It would be interesting to note
how social networking sites play a big role in human developmental and social learning theories
that might be described to presume the reasons why a person commits crime.

Objective of Study

This paper examines how people behave in certain ways because of their social learning
experiences. It is also to see the effects of social networking sites on the cognitive, social and
personality development in adolescence and adulthood because social networking sites has
become a highly effective and profitable means of distributing sexually explicit material, as well
as a sophisticated channel for compulsive sexual behavior, sex trafficking and sex crimes
(Galbreath & Berlin, 2002).

Research Questions

In relation to this topic, this paper tries to answer two main questions:

1. How social networking sites influence one’s behavior?

2. How social networking sites contribute to the crime development?