Risky stunts for social media fame; central legislation necessary

The new generation of young men and women are doing a lot of adventurous celebrations that are breaking the boundaries and are creating a big threat to social life. It is becoming popular to perform stunts such as hanging from the top of a high-rise building with one hand, jumping in front of a running bus, and posting them as reels on social media. There are two reasons why young people get involved in such adventurous performances. As these reels are shared on social media, these people reach out to lakhs of people. Secondly, they also get a decent income by increasing likes and subscriptions to such reels. Fast popularity and money!!!

Many of those participating in such risky stunts end up dying, and we only know about the incident when they hit the news. A 23-year-old man from Telangana who took reels imitating a hanging scene in a movie, a woman who lost control of her car while recording a reel and fell 300 feet to her death in Maharashtra's Aurangabad, and two children who were hit by a train in Nashik while filming a reel on the track are victims of such dangerous stunts. Sanju, who removed the back seat of the car to make a swimming pool and travelled in that car, the youth who travelled through the ups and downs of the winding road in Munnar with their heads and bodies outside the car door, a 17-year-old girl from Thiruvananthapuram who committed suicide after being tricked by a YouTube influencer.....the list goes on and on.

It is also sad that instead of portraying those who engage in such activities as anti-social, they are given celebrity status by social media and society itself. There are even people who celebrated the presumptuous young man by giving him the nickname 'Sanju Techy', who broke not only the Motor Vehicle Act but even common social etiquette by filling his car with water.

Why do our youth engage in such highly dangerous activities that destroy the sanctity of social life? We need to understand the phenomena of generational change for this. They are born into the midst of all the delights of the Internet age and bathe in its magic.

They submit to the tastes created by the digital world. They like to indulge in a kind of virtual world. Whatever the reasons may be, we must observe carefully that this is becoming a social disaster. Legal measures should be tightened. Central legislation should be brought to prevent this. Section 336 of the Indian Penal Code, punishable with imprisonment of up to six months and a fine for conduct endangering life, is being utilised now. It would be useful to think about how strictly this can be implemented.