I’ve always been faintly fascinated with the amount of ire folks on the ‘net are capable of displaying. In a lot of ways, it’s almost as if, one some level, they don’t realize that they’re dealing with another human being. It’s as though they somehow disconnect themselves from everybody else, and as such, feel no compunctions about flinging abuse and hatred at the other person.
Of course, it’s entirely possible that, with the breakdown of societal law and the relative lack of consequences, this is how they’d be all the time.
Either way, the amount of bullying and bile we’re seeing spewed all across the web says a lot about our youth and our culture- and nothing of what it says is good. It paints a very, very dark picture, and it’s getting worse.
If someone was being abused at school or work, it used to be that they could come home and be safe from the abuse. Now, however…there’s no longer a safe haven. The global village of the Internet has brought people far closer together, and made contacting one another much, much simpler – meaning that if you hate someone, it’s immensely easy to track them down and make their life hell. One only has to look at the numerous “raids” carried out by anonymous to understand just how ugly things can get.
Sadly, some people aren’t able to deal with that.
Now, believe it or not, I am actually going somewhere with all this rambling. See, I always knew there was a fair share of human ugliness present on the Internet. What I didn’t realize, however, was just how widespread and damaging it’s become. Have a look: I’ve attached an infographic with some details on the matter. Click on it for a larger image.
Image Credits: [Bullying Renoir][Make Use Of]
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Not new. My son is 30 yrs old; when he was in kindergarten at a nearby parochial school, the son of one of the wealthier families came to school with straight pins, with which he stabbed other children. The teachers never seemed to notice this. I am old; I told my son to just hit the kid if he ever came near – and when my kid told me that he couldn’t do this because his teacher would get mad, I told him that he’d have to deal with the teacher for the rest of the year, but would have to deal with the bully for 9 years, and that I would get him an ice cream cone if he hit the kid. Subsequently I pulled my kid out and home schooled him (he was never stabbed); but a couple of years later an 8th grade girl in the same school attempted to kill herself after years of bullying which the teachers never noticed – including an episode in which she was “pantsed” by some of her classmates at a school talent show. There were apparently no consequences for the little darlings who pulled this public “stunt”. One term during the home school years I put my kid into the local public middle school as punishment for not doing his work at home and was treated to various horror stories about school. The one I remember was the time a little brat yelled at a friend of my son (during lunch) that his mother was a whore. As I said, I’m old; so I asked my kid if he had rubbed the other kid’s face in the dirt or had at least tried. He told me, of course, that he had not because he would be suspended if he did.
There was bullying when I was in school, but somehow teachers and other adults seemed to notice it then and put a stop to it at least in the places where they were in charge. My experience with my son’s “outside” education in grade school was that the teachers either ignored it or, in a couple of particular ugly cases, encouraged it. I sent him to a private high school where that kind of thing didn’t seem to happen.
Sorry for the “wall of text”, but this has been one of my “hot buttons” for years. Yes, I agree completely that the reason it seems to be out of control is that adults condone or encourage it.