Deviance in sociology is defined as a behavior that violates the standards of conduct or expectations of a group or society. We are all deviants from time to time. Each of us violates common social norms in certain situations. Deviance involves the violation of group norms that may or may not be formalized into law. One of the most important problems is the violence happening in schools and universities that causes deviant behavior.
Violence is very common among our youth in this generation and it’s spread widely in our society. Violence can lead to several problems in our society.
Now the question arises why does such things happen and what’s the reason behind it?
The constant storm of television programs and violent media channels causes deviant behavior in children. When children are immature or in their infant age, they are very receptive and responsive by the things going on around them. They learn things very quickly and often kids are influenced by what they see. This process of learning in their infancy is called internalization or symbolic interaction by which they accept and adopt the norms, understand their cultural values and beliefs, which has been taught to them in their early stage of life. So we understand how nurture plays an important role in a children’s life.
From an age of three, children watching cartoons or kids based television channels starts imitating someone on the television. There are certain super heroes and characters in cartoons that act violently even for a so-called good reason. For example when characters like batman, superman, Spiderman is shown in a fighting scene to protect a girl from a bad man. This is how the media is playing with the growing minds of children. If the media is showing such stuff to the younger generation, then who knows after a couple of years we might see certain acts of negative deviance in our schools, colleges, universities, on streets and everywhere. As a sociologist, it is the responsibility of our society to impose a law of social control in order to stop certain acts.
These Children, who grew up watching violence on TV, may end up being violent students by fighting or bullying other students or in worst case they might target their professors too which can drag them into worst situations and they might be expelled out from their educational institution and ruin their lives even more. As a social audience, we name this act of violence as a deviant behavior that can occur in a child due to the symbolic interaction that has to be noticed in their early stages of life.
