Extremist views online may be contributing to young people wanting to carry out violence, a psychologist has warned.
It comes after an Edinburgh teenager who wanted to carry out a mass shooting at his own school was jailed for six years.
Felix Winter, now aged 18, was sentenced at the High Court in Glasgow on Wednesday.
He repeatedly spoke about carrying out an attack at his secondary school, referring to the day he would “clear it out” as “Doomsday”.
The court previously heard the teenager “idolised” the killers behind the Columbine High School massacre in Colorado in the United States in 1999, which saw 12 students and a teacher gunned down.
A major police investigation began in the summer of 2023 after a photo circulated on social media showing the boy at school in full combat gear, carrying an imitation gun, which caused panic among pupils and parents.
Winter had already been referred to a UK-wide anti-terrorism programme aimed at preventing radicalisation.
He also held racist and pro-Nazi views.
Police ScotlandDr Dawn Harris, consultant clinical forensic psychologist, says extremist views on social media can fuel young people to feel the world is a “threatening place”.
She stressed a number of factors, however, can lead to a young person to think or act with extremist ideas.
Dr Harris told STV News: “In teenage years, it’s all about peers, influences, and risk-taking. Impulsivity is quite high. So as a result, teenagers are trying to find an identity in the world.
“We know that teenagers these days have a lot of problems with mental health. They might have had untreated traumas. It might be in the family home. It might be at school.
“And if you think about that, then that creates this idea that the world is a threatening place.
“When the world becomes a threatening place, how do I deal with this when I’m a teenager?
“I don’t know how to verbalise it to others. So I go searching. I look at the internet, and I might find that people are feeling like that too.
“I start talking to them and they fuel my desire for revenge. You know, there’s a saying of hurt people hurt people. So I now have this in my head. It’s all in my subconscious.
“I then start to talk to them. I get into forums, and I start to feel I belong. When at home and at school, I don’t belong.
“If you take all of those factors, the person might then start to look at violence online, and they might be introduced to violence by someone else.
“A teenage brain is very susceptible to other influences, what other people say. If you don’t have an adult around, you can go to search for it with these people who might have extremist views.
“As a teenager, the question is what’s my identity? Who am I? Who can I be?”
Dr Harris added: “There is evidence around the fact that it’s not social media per se. That is the difficulty. I think it’s more about if you are quite vulnerable in the first place, you can go on to social media.
“There are media algorithms that will then provide you with information about what you are already searching for, be that violence or other fantasies.
“If you’re already vulnerable because of trauma, because of other difficulties, autism, neurodivergent generally, then that can also create problems.
“And as you look again online for something, some answers are going to help you to figure out what’s going on in your head.
“That is really confusing. So yes, it can be very dangerous for people who already have existing abilities.”
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