The Impacts of Viral Video through Whatsapp among Adolecense in Penang, Malaysia

WhatsApp was launched in 2009 as the most popular messaging app that owned more than 600 million users worldwide. The statistic in Social Bakers indicates the growth of WhatsApp users in Malaysia is increased 334 by week and 1225 by month. Being alert towards the nature of social media sites becomes important because not all the contents of WhatsApp produce a good context for children and adolescents. Some of the potential problems of WhatsApp are cyberbullying, sexting, and vulnerability of improper contents. Even though, the outstanding advantage of WhatsApp is included the ease of communication; however WhatsApp also have the possibilities to demolish an individual's or organization's status, and create a sense of depression to the public. This study was conducted to investigate the types of viral videos that spread among adolescents in Penang as well as to explore the impacts of viral videos through WhatsApp. Participants of the study made up of nine adolescents aged between 15 to 19 years old from Penang, Malaysia. The methodology of this research is a qualitative method by using in-depth interviews. The findings showed that there are six types of viral videos that spread among adolescents involved in this study. Meanwhile, both negative and positive has been identified as impacts of viral videos in this study.