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Teen Creates “Sit with Us” App for Bullied Kids

iamabraham 10y ago
Regardless of how successful the app is, I applaud her (at any age) for making something that seeks to solve a real problem. It's refreshing to see this kind of thing come into existence - regardless of success.
donmaq 10y ago
This is very cool. I know this is a serious problem in my daughter's school with 5th graders... ie 10 years old & they aren't allowed phones at school. I wonder if there a viable asynch solution, ie via a browser...
- huehehue 10y ago
  I'd wager a word-of-mouth campaign or televised PSA would sooner help kids that young (though I love the idea of the app).
- joezydeco 10y ago
  Or just a simple button that the ambassadors can wear on their shirts?
  - Bartweiss 10y ago
    Then everyone knows that you're sitting with the Sit With Us kids - the beauty of the app is that new kids can just take a seat without any visible distinction.
- taco_emoji 10y ago
  I'm guessing it's pretty common for there to be a phone ban at schools these days, so hopefully Sit With Us has a story for that... Maybe they can coordinate via the app at home the night/morning before school?
superplussed 10y ago
Regardless of what happens with this app, it's an amazing project that is coming from personal experience and a desire to do good by others. She has a bright future indeed!
- ddog78 10y ago
  Yep completely agree. I would hire her on the basis of this alone tbh, given I was working in a field somewhat related to social causes. Apps take hard work first and foremost, and dedication. Oh hell.. writing this.. I think I'll contact these people at least, help them out in their spare time.
kesselvon 10y ago
This does not bode well for the next generation's social skills.
- onion2k 10y ago
  That's one way of looking at it. Here's another: the fact there are kids who feel an entire school can make them feel unwelcome doesn't bode well for parents and teachers who are failing raise children to be decent people. If there are children who are bullied and ostracized at your kid's school then you are failing to teach your child to stand up to oppression and hate. Children are learning this stuff largely by trial and error. Adults have a responsibility to point them in the right direction.
  - jerf 10y ago
    Children are not adults who are just physically smaller. Unless you have a magic invocation that can instantly train children to behave the way you want, there must, by necessity, be a window of time where this is still a problem even if everybody is behaving as perfectly as can be expected. Further, the idea that even adults act this way is pretty silly. It's masked by the fact that in the adult world, we have far more power to self-sort into groups we find acceptable. I am not aware of anybody who actually makes everybody else feel welcome, and that certainly includes even those who make a big show about how inclusive they are, which generally gives me a lot of statistical information about exactly which groups they're interested in excluding.
    - onion2k 10y ago
      Unless you have a magic invocation that can instantly train children to behave the way you want, there must, by necessity, be a window of time where this is still a problem even if everybody is behaving as perfectly as can be expected. I didn't say it could be done easily or instantly. What I'm saying is that children bullying one another isn't just a problem for the children; it's a problem for the adults who those children are learning standards of acceptable behavior from.
    - pjc50 10y ago
kesselvon 10y ago
This does not bode well for the next generation's social skills.
samfisher83 10y ago
Maybe someone needs to make an app for adults too. Especially as you get older it is harder to make new friends.
- joshmarlow 10y ago
  I would rather like something like this for Restaurants/Bars. There are times when I'm taking up a whole table and would gladly share with someone.
  - wccrawford 10y ago
    I would think that a sign on the table would be a lot more effective. I've definitely had times in crowded restaurants that I was willing to share my table with people who were looking for one, but I'm shy and had no way to signal that without feeling like bad things were going to happen, so I just sat there. I think only 1 time did someone ever ask, and I let them. But if I had a sign that could signal that the other 3 chairs at my 4-person table were available, I'd use it, at least sometimes. An app, though? That just seems like a pain.
    - Tyr42 10y ago
      I even thought of making little signs saying "Would welcome sharing a table" and putting them next to the cafeteria trays at work.
    - mikepurvis 10y ago
      Board game cafes usually have little signs for "come join us".
    - joshmarlow 10y ago
      I've had the same experience. Agreed, signs would be simpler and a preferable user experience. But then you have to get every restaurant to produce/keep them or carry your own. Still you're right about the app being a bit of a pain.
  - gm-conspiracy 10y ago
IG88 10y ago
Hmm, I'm not sure how I feel about this app. If there are no nerds sitting by themselves, how will I know who to bully? /s I think this is a step in the right direction. Using technology to break the ice, without having to risk rejection in real life will help many people cope with socializing in the lunchroom. It will really help minimize the social awkwardness of asking to sit at someone's table. Friendly people will simply be able to mark themselves as friendly and whoever needs a friend can simply join them without fear of rejection.
dev1n 10y ago
what happens when two ambassadors for a school start competing to get more people at their tables?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- nxrabl 10y ago
  The free market in action!
blondiedondie 10y ago
This is an amazing effort and a great app. I'm glad it's really working out. However... teens being teens and bullies being bullies... isn't there a risk they might use the app just to find and target the kids who used to be lonely? I mean, its a pretty silly question I guess.. but it's something that crossed my mind when I read the article.
- Raphmedia 10y ago
  It's not hard to spot the lonely kids in the cafeteria and bully them. It's harder to find the lonely kids that might be friends with you. The bullies don't need the app but the lonely kids do!
  - tinix 10y ago
    Maybe the bullies are truly the lonely ones, and use bullying as an outlet to hide that. Food for thought...
lumberjack 10y ago
Prediction: All kids start using this app to formalise their social circles the end result being that the outcasts remain outcasts but now they know exactly how rejected they are by the rest of the student body.
- pg_is_a_butt 10y ago
  exactly. the app isn't for bullied kids, it's for bullies to demonstrate their power. "you sit where we say. we are in charge. you are nothing." you're all idiots.
- littlegreenb18 10y ago
  One of us has a major misunderstanding of how this app works.
- makmanalp 10y ago
  Alternate and much more depressing prediction: "Normal" kids won't want to use an app for bullied (i.e. "weird") kids in general. Some bullied / non-conformist / nerdy / queer / alt / etc kids will try to use it and probably enjoy it. Then some bully will discover that they can post an open lunch table to find out who's using the app and then humiliate them, perpetuating the cycle. edit: ... but I still love the idea.
- joshontheweb 10y ago
  A lot of these kids aren't trying to be in the 'in crowd' so much as have any friends at all. Many of them would be most happy to exist in a circle of 'outcasts'.
- jbigelow76 10y ago
  Outcast kids are usually keenly aware of just how alone they are among their peers.
jamesmp98 10y ago
I could have done that when I was 16, but I wouldn't have had any media attention :P
- tonmoy 10y ago
  I could've made a web app like Facebook before Zucherburg
  - beamatronic 10y ago
    There actually were apps just like it - Orkut and Friendster for example. Facebook was originally somewhat exclusive, I believe you had to have a .edu email address to sign up.
    - amyjess 10y ago
      > Facebook was originally somewhat exclusive, I believe you had to have a .edu email address to sign up. You actually had to have an email address at one of the specific universities Facebook supported. Over their first few years, they slowly rolled out Facebook to more and more universities, one at a time, and then they started adding high schools and corporations as well. I remember my college being super excited when Facebook finally rolled out to us in spring 2005.
      - beamatronic 10y ago
        I think this did two things, it made an "exclusive" club that people wanted to get into, and it also improved the signal to noise ratio versus a wide-open sign up
libeclipse 10y ago
It's a nice idea but ultimately it won't work, especially with secondary school kids. The people that this would help won't use it for fear of seeming desperate and the bullies would use it to target those kids.
nojvek 10y ago
I remember being bullied several times as a kid for being the short, very slim nerd. But being a victim, do you want to sign up to an app? I had to learn it the hard way to get myself out of it. That being said I also know I ended becoming a bully out of revenge. A vigilante bully.
- edc117 10y ago
  This is an insightful (and a little sad) comment. I was bullied growing up as well, and I used to find myself being more cruel than necessary with certain people. Luckily I recognized it and learned to stop it, but it's a fact of life that we are the sum of our experiences - even (especially?) the negative ones.
ourmandave 10y ago
What if all my friends get this app and I suddenly find myself sitting alone at lunch with the realization that I'm an asshole?
- st3v3r 10y ago
  Hopefully you'll get the message, and stop being an asshole.
xoryo 10y ago
Couldn't this also be used by the bullies? I mean they could put a spot open and then when the kid approaches the spot, bully them away and embarrass them.
HillaryBriss 10y ago
There doesn't seem to be an Android version http://sitwithus.io./ http://sitwithus.io./
- devopsproject 10y ago
  contact them and ask why
daxorid 10y ago
Unpopular opinion with healthy dose of anecdata incoming. I was bullied mercilessly from 3rd grade through 7th grade. Wedgies, keepaway, taunts, set-ups, beatings anywhere from hit and runs to ground and pounds. At some point in the 7th grade during an ordinary, routine beating, something snapped within me and I turned around and landed on the order of 40 blows to the kid's face. I was never bullied again. I would advocate immediate, publicly visible, and decisive violence as a solution to bullies.
- iamabraham 10y ago
  "Anyone that says violence doesn't solve anything has never had their ass kicked" - My HS best friend's Dad teaching us about dealing with bullies circa 1991
  - artursapek 10y ago
    That's one hell of a dad quote
  - spacemanmatt 10y ago
    Lotsa dads make the point for me, that kids who do not tend to turn to violence have not experienced it. But it's lost on them -- they usually think not experiencing violence is a weakness.
    - kstenerud 10y ago
      Not a weakness per se, but rather a lost opportunity for learning how to assert yourself. Violence is the purest form of assertion, and can be extrapolated into nonviolent aspects of life later on. Being bullied (and fighting back) made me consider the philosophy of violence as a kid, and made me strong. It also taught me to stand my ground and take no shit from anyone, which was true in school, in the workplace, dealing with customer support, you name it.
      - spacemanmatt 10y ago
        I do not agree that violence is the purest form of assertion. On what basis did you judge purity, anyway? That seems like the sort of thing a violent person tells themselves in justification of their world view.
eggy 10y ago
Maybe I am the old man in the room, but even though it sounds neat, and the intentions are good, I think the net result is pushing more towards not dealing with the world and now instead of slipping notes folded in your hand with micro-writing to someone, you text them or hook up on an app. The note could get intercepted and abused in the past, and the same for this app, just as Facebook can be used to prey upon people, so can this app be used. Tech is not always the answer, although tech is liberating and awesome in general. Part of growing up is learning to take chances, and overcome fears, extreme cases not included. Children learn to test boundaries, and explore. Some kids, and their parents are just bad or ignorant, and it will always exist in some manner. The goal post moves to the next unacceptable thing to the point where people will only be able to live in urban areas, and wouldn't last a minute outside of their cell coverage zone, or in nature. It will never go away even with all of the tech and laws. You can't legislate intelligence, and you cannot tech it to death. I for one think things have gotten better, but the bad is reported more, and gives the impression that it is somehow worse in people's minds. I look at my childhood, and my children's and they are orders of magnitude in difference to the violence and things that went on in my neighborhood. I do, though see the relative discomforts. Meaning something that would not have personally been hurtful to me then, or at least I would have been able to put aside, and move on, would be more of an issue to my children's peers. We have progressed, and are whittling away at the extremes, but then the relative borders of unacceptable move closer perhaps enough to make the emotional magnitude equivalent.
- tetrep 10y ago
  > We have progressed, and are whittling away at the extremes, but then the relative borders of unacceptable move closer perhaps enough to make the emotional magnitude equivalent. I think this is a general trend with socializing and the internet. Before ~instantaneous communication in global forums, you had to "make do" or compromise with how you socialized among your peers, since you were limited to the immediate geographic area (less as you grow older and potentially get access to cars/more autonomy). But now, you can literally just take your socializing elsewhere, it's a "buyers" market for socializing where, if you don't like your current social network, you can pretty easily drop it and go somewhere more comfortable for you. This is great from a curated safety standpoint but it breeds dependence on these social escapes. I think parallels nicely with "fight or flight" where you can either try to fight for your social standing in your current environment, or flee to a more welcoming one. If you always choose flee, you'll always be satisfied by some other group socially (assuming you can find one, which should be pretty easy on the internet) but you'll never learn how to handle social conflict in a healthy manner, and thus your boundaries of acceptability shrink more and more as you mature and come to better understand what you want (or at least what you dislike). I think it's similar to having too hygienic an environment when growing up, your body doesn't adapt to various allergens and you end up less healthy the curation. Or the cliche spoiled child, who grows up to become extremely difficult to work on a team/interact with in general because they're not learned in compromise and are incapable of comprehending "not getting their way." Technology in general allows us to better enact our will, which I think is also slowly spoiling those who fully take advantage of it. Just like it's healthy to keep physically and mentally challenging yourself, I think emotionally challenging yourself is also healthy, and while you don't need to seek out difficult social interactions, I think it's healthy to try to solve the problems without simply avoiding them. edit: for age context, i'm in my mid-twenties
red_blobs 10y ago
Friendship needs to be earned, or it won't really mean anything. Bullying is a terrible thing and needs to be stopped, but this will do little to help out the person being bullied in the long-run. I was bullied in middle school and finding a good group of friends is what stopped it. But I had to do it myself and earn it.
downandout 10y ago
This app has wonderful intentions, but I fear that it won't work in real life. By merely downloading the app, kids will be labeling themselves as bullied. This opens up a variety of new avenues for bullies to ply their trade - from new insults ("You're such a loser you had to install that Sit With Us app") all the way up to sociopaths that install the app and extend a fake invitation to sit with them for the express purpose of further victimizing their targets. Bullies will weaponize any means of escape that their victims attempt to utilize. Perhaps a more effective app would be one that lets parents register to field complaints about their kids' behavior from anyone.
- tinus_hn 10y ago
  The app is both for children who are bullied and those that want to help, so that kind of spying wouldn't work. Plenty of children do want to help but don't know how and this idea can help. Surely a bullied child won't be invited to the popular kids clique but having some normal people to talk to is a great start.
  - downandout 10y ago
    >Surely a bullied child won't be invited to the popular kids clique My fear is that they indeed will be invited as a joke, only to meet with in-person rejection. Along the lines of "HAHAHA you thought that was a real invitation?".
    - anotheryou 10y ago
      I also wondered how this could work. Maybe et people vote against abusers and have some local teachers with veto power (usually they know who is bully and who gets bullied I think). Especially positive votes could be less likely to be faked, it would require more work to fake reputation than to abuse the abuse-button. edit: A much easier solution: Educate the bullied on how the system could be used against them and that they simply have to glance over if it's the bullies sitting at the table or normal kids. I think most bullies are just joining in, but wouldn't initiate setting someone up. The worst however will initiate such a thing, but those are probably already known to you as a bullied.
niftich 10y ago
This isn't for the 'being pushed around' kind of physical bullying, it's essentially for social matchmaking. I'd argue that excluding a certain person from one's social circle isn't (and shouldn't be counted as) bullying -- I'm not sure whether it is or isn't -- but social exclusion from multiple disparate groups will manifest as being ostracized, and that's the problem this is trying to solve. I applaud the good intentions but social networks (in the traditional sociology sense) in schools will transcend real-life/online boundaries and service boundaries, so school-age people's friends on Snapchat are largely the same as their friends in the classroom and lunchroom, and vice versa. The only potential I see here is the a discreet 'lowkey' way of broadcasting good intentions that a particular person is friendly, but this relies on that person's intentions being authentic; which is an unsolved problem.
- alexandre_m 10y ago
  Like you said, it's for matchmaking on the spot during lunch hours. I don't see the problem, I applaud the initiative. It solves a simple issue: where do I sit when I know no one. For those who are ambassadors, you can make new friends.
AWildDHHAppears 10y ago
Won't the bullies use this app to lure "losers" over and then make fun of them? I don't see how this will help.
kazinator 10y ago
I'm trying to think how this kind of app might be an improvement over a folded-over piece of cardboard which says "sit with us", placed on an actual table. Or a notice on a bulletin board. The problem that the bullied kid looking for a place to sit is stuck in one school, with one lunch room. All the viable tables are "captive" in that one room; the "UI" for selecting one can be that room itself. Even if there are a couple of rooms, that just means a small search. It seems that "find stuff" type apps really only make sense over a metropolitan area, because you don't have a overview of that area; you don't know what is happening where without an information feed. There is less incremental environmental impact. Even if the cardboard sign is re-used many times, it still has more of an environmental footprint compared to one more app on the phone.
iamthepieman 10y ago
When I was a kid I hit another kid in the nose with a wooden block because he was picking on me and another boy who were trying to play peacefully with said blocks. I immediately regretted it to the point where it is one of the most vivid (and only) memories I have from that period (I was 4. it was pre-school) I think I meant to threaten him but instead gave him a bloody nose and sent him to the nurse. I distinctly remember (this said in my 35 year old voice, I doubt it was this clear a thought at 4) vowing to not use violence ever again to solve my problems. That said, the boy never picked on me or anyone around me again. There is no moral to this story.
ARothfusz 10y ago
How did she create it? What did she use as a development framework or a back end? How is she funding her servers and databases?
shruubi 10y ago
Like most commenters, I was also bullied relentlessly in high school. And, as it seems most other people have been told to do, I took the advice of "do nothing and ignore it" route. Here's the thing, it's all well and good for an adult to tell a kid "oh just ignore it", but you can't ignore someone sneaking up behind you and slamming your face into a brick wall, so of course, adrenaline coursing through you, you retaliate. Now, despite you being attacked out of the blue, for no reason other than some sadistic asshole gets his jollies out of hurting you, and you trying to defend yourself, when teachers dole out the punishment you also get punished. A system that punishes a kid that was assaulted from behind because they tried to defend themselves from their attacker is not a system that is designed to prevent bullying or help the bullied. The reason every kid in every school thinks all those anti-bullying programs are stupid and don't want to participate is because they realize something that the teachers don't, which is that it is nothing but bullshit lip-service to make those whose responsibility it is to actually do something feel better about their absolute lack of care or effort.

Regardless of how successful the app is, I applaud her (at any age) for making something that seeks to solve a real problem. It's refreshing to see this kind of thing come into existence - regardless of success.

donmaq 10y ago

This is very cool. I know this is a serious problem in my daughter's school with 5th graders... ie 10 years old & they aren't allowed phones at school. I wonder if there a viable asynch solution, ie via a browser...

huehehue 10y ago
I'd wager a word-of-mouth campaign or televised PSA would sooner help kids that young (though I love the idea of the app).
joezydeco 10y ago
Or just a simple button that the ambassadors can wear on their shirts?
- Bartweiss 10y ago
  Then everyone knows that you're sitting with the Sit With Us kids - the beauty of the app is that new kids can just take a seat without any visible distinction.
taco_emoji 10y ago
I'm guessing it's pretty common for there to be a phone ban at schools these days, so hopefully Sit With Us has a story for that... Maybe they can coordinate via the app at home the night/morning before school?

superplussed 10y ago

Regardless of what happens with this app, it's an amazing project that is coming from personal experience and a desire to do good by others. She has a bright future indeed!

ddog78 10y ago
Yep completely agree. I would hire her on the basis of this alone tbh, given I was working in a field somewhat related to social causes. Apps take hard work first and foremost, and dedication. Oh hell.. writing this.. I think I'll contact these people at least, help them out in their spare time.

kesselvon 10y ago

This does not bode well for the next generation's social skills.

onion2k 10y ago
That's one way of looking at it. Here's another: the fact there are kids who feel an entire school can make them feel unwelcome doesn't bode well for parents and teachers who are failing raise children to be decent people. If there are children who are bullied and ostracized at your kid's school then you are failing to teach your child to stand up to oppression and hate. Children are learning this stuff largely by trial and error. Adults have a responsibility to point them in the right direction.
- jerf 10y ago
  Children are not adults who are just physically smaller. Unless you have a magic invocation that can instantly train children to behave the way you want, there must, by necessity, be a window of time where this is still a problem even if everybody is behaving as perfectly as can be expected. Further, the idea that even adults act this way is pretty silly. It's masked by the fact that in the adult world, we have far more power to self-sort into groups we find acceptable. I am not aware of anybody who actually makes everybody else feel welcome, and that certainly includes even those who make a big show about how inclusive they are, which generally gives me a lot of statistical information about exactly which groups they're interested in excluding.
  - onion2k 10y ago
    Unless you have a magic invocation that can instantly train children to behave the way you want, there must, by necessity, be a window of time where this is still a problem even if everybody is behaving as perfectly as can be expected. I didn't say it could be done easily or instantly. What I'm saying is that children bullying one another isn't just a problem for the children; it's a problem for the adults who those children are learning standards of acceptable behavior from.
  - pjc50 10y ago

kesselvon 10y ago

This does not bode well for the next generation's social skills.

samfisher83 10y ago

Maybe someone needs to make an app for adults too. Especially as you get older it is harder to make new friends.

joshmarlow 10y ago
I would rather like something like this for Restaurants/Bars. There are times when I'm taking up a whole table and would gladly share with someone.
- wccrawford 10y ago
  I would think that a sign on the table would be a lot more effective. I've definitely had times in crowded restaurants that I was willing to share my table with people who were looking for one, but I'm shy and had no way to signal that without feeling like bad things were going to happen, so I just sat there. I think only 1 time did someone ever ask, and I let them. But if I had a sign that could signal that the other 3 chairs at my 4-person table were available, I'd use it, at least sometimes. An app, though? That just seems like a pain.
  - Tyr42 10y ago
    I even thought of making little signs saying "Would welcome sharing a table" and putting them next to the cafeteria trays at work.
  - mikepurvis 10y ago
    Board game cafes usually have little signs for "come join us".
  - joshmarlow 10y ago
    I've had the same experience. Agreed, signs would be simpler and a preferable user experience. But then you have to get every restaurant to produce/keep them or carry your own. Still you're right about the app being a bit of a pain.
- gm-conspiracy 10y ago

IG88 10y ago

Hmm, I'm not sure how I feel about this app. If there are no nerds sitting by themselves, how will I know who to bully? /s I think this is a step in the right direction. Using technology to break the ice, without having to risk rejection in real life will help many people cope with socializing in the lunchroom. It will really help minimize the social awkwardness of asking to sit at someone's table. Friendly people will simply be able to mark themselves as friendly and whoever needs a friend can simply join them without fear of rejection.

dev1n 10y ago

what happens when two ambassadors for a school start competing to get more people at their tables?

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
nxrabl 10y ago
The free market in action!

blondiedondie 10y ago

This is an amazing effort and a great app. I'm glad it's really working out. However... teens being teens and bullies being bullies... isn't there a risk they might use the app just to find and target the kids who used to be lonely? I mean, its a pretty silly question I guess.. but it's something that crossed my mind when I read the article.

Raphmedia 10y ago
It's not hard to spot the lonely kids in the cafeteria and bully them. It's harder to find the lonely kids that might be friends with you. The bullies don't need the app but the lonely kids do!
- tinix 10y ago
  Maybe the bullies are truly the lonely ones, and use bullying as an outlet to hide that. Food for thought...

lumberjack 10y ago

Prediction: All kids start using this app to formalise their social circles the end result being that the outcasts remain outcasts but now they know exactly how rejected they are by the rest of the student body.

pg_is_a_butt 10y ago
exactly. the app isn't for bullied kids, it's for bullies to demonstrate their power. "you sit where we say. we are in charge. you are nothing." you're all idiots.
littlegreenb18 10y ago
One of us has a major misunderstanding of how this app works.
makmanalp 10y ago
Alternate and much more depressing prediction: "Normal" kids won't want to use an app for bullied (i.e. "weird") kids in general. Some bullied / non-conformist / nerdy / queer / alt / etc kids will try to use it and probably enjoy it. Then some bully will discover that they can post an open lunch table to find out who's using the app and then humiliate them, perpetuating the cycle. edit: ... but I still love the idea.
joshontheweb 10y ago
A lot of these kids aren't trying to be in the 'in crowd' so much as have any friends at all. Many of them would be most happy to exist in a circle of 'outcasts'.
jbigelow76 10y ago
Outcast kids are usually keenly aware of just how alone they are among their peers.

jamesmp98 10y ago

I could have done that when I was 16, but I wouldn't have had any media attention :P

tonmoy 10y ago
I could've made a web app like Facebook before Zucherburg
- beamatronic 10y ago
  There actually were apps just like it - Orkut and Friendster for example. Facebook was originally somewhat exclusive, I believe you had to have a .edu email address to sign up.
  - amyjess 10y ago
    > Facebook was originally somewhat exclusive, I believe you had to have a .edu email address to sign up. You actually had to have an email address at one of the specific universities Facebook supported. Over their first few years, they slowly rolled out Facebook to more and more universities, one at a time, and then they started adding high schools and corporations as well. I remember my college being super excited when Facebook finally rolled out to us in spring 2005.
    - beamatronic 10y ago
      I think this did two things, it made an "exclusive" club that people wanted to get into, and it also improved the signal to noise ratio versus a wide-open sign up

libeclipse 10y ago

It's a nice idea but ultimately it won't work, especially with secondary school kids. The people that this would help won't use it for fear of seeming desperate and the bullies would use it to target those kids.

nojvek 10y ago

I remember being bullied several times as a kid for being the short, very slim nerd. But being a victim, do you want to sign up to an app? I had to learn it the hard way to get myself out of it. That being said I also know I ended becoming a bully out of revenge. A vigilante bully.

edc117 10y ago
This is an insightful (and a little sad) comment. I was bullied growing up as well, and I used to find myself being more cruel than necessary with certain people. Luckily I recognized it and learned to stop it, but it's a fact of life that we are the sum of our experiences - even (especially?) the negative ones.

ourmandave 10y ago

What if all my friends get this app and I suddenly find myself sitting alone at lunch with the realization that I'm an asshole?

st3v3r 10y ago
Hopefully you'll get the message, and stop being an asshole.

xoryo 10y ago

Couldn't this also be used by the bullies? I mean they could put a spot open and then when the kid approaches the spot, bully them away and embarrass them.

HillaryBriss 10y ago

There doesn't seem to be an Android version http://sitwithus.io./ http://sitwithus.io./

devopsproject 10y ago
contact them and ask why

daxorid 10y ago

Unpopular opinion with healthy dose of anecdata incoming. I was bullied mercilessly from 3rd grade through 7th grade. Wedgies, keepaway, taunts, set-ups, beatings anywhere from hit and runs to ground and pounds. At some point in the 7th grade during an ordinary, routine beating, something snapped within me and I turned around and landed on the order of 40 blows to the kid's face. I was never bullied again. I would advocate immediate, publicly visible, and decisive violence as a solution to bullies.

iamabraham 10y ago
"Anyone that says violence doesn't solve anything has never had their ass kicked" - My HS best friend's Dad teaching us about dealing with bullies circa 1991
- artursapek 10y ago
  That's one hell of a dad quote
- spacemanmatt 10y ago
  Lotsa dads make the point for me, that kids who do not tend to turn to violence have not experienced it. But it's lost on them -- they usually think not experiencing violence is a weakness.
  - kstenerud 10y ago
    Not a weakness per se, but rather a lost opportunity for learning how to assert yourself. Violence is the purest form of assertion, and can be extrapolated into nonviolent aspects of life later on. Being bullied (and fighting back) made me consider the philosophy of violence as a kid, and made me strong. It also taught me to stand my ground and take no shit from anyone, which was true in school, in the workplace, dealing with customer support, you name it.
    - spacemanmatt 10y ago
      I do not agree that violence is the purest form of assertion. On what basis did you judge purity, anyway? That seems like the sort of thing a violent person tells themselves in justification of their world view.

eggy 10y ago

Maybe I am the old man in the room, but even though it sounds neat, and the intentions are good, I think the net result is pushing more towards not dealing with the world and now instead of slipping notes folded in your hand with micro-writing to someone, you text them or hook up on an app. The note could get intercepted and abused in the past, and the same for this app, just as Facebook can be used to prey upon people, so can this app be used. Tech is not always the answer, although tech is liberating and awesome in general. Part of growing up is learning to take chances, and overcome fears, extreme cases not included. Children learn to test boundaries, and explore. Some kids, and their parents are just bad or ignorant, and it will always exist in some manner. The goal post moves to the next unacceptable thing to the point where people will only be able to live in urban areas, and wouldn't last a minute outside of their cell coverage zone, or in nature. It will never go away even with all of the tech and laws. You can't legislate intelligence, and you cannot tech it to death. I for one think things have gotten better, but the bad is reported more, and gives the impression that it is somehow worse in people's minds. I look at my childhood, and my children's and they are orders of magnitude in difference to the violence and things that went on in my neighborhood. I do, though see the relative discomforts. Meaning something that would not have personally been hurtful to me then, or at least I would have been able to put aside, and move on, would be more of an issue to my children's peers. We have progressed, and are whittling away at the extremes, but then the relative borders of unacceptable move closer perhaps enough to make the emotional magnitude equivalent.

tetrep 10y ago
> We have progressed, and are whittling away at the extremes, but then the relative borders of unacceptable move closer perhaps enough to make the emotional magnitude equivalent. I think this is a general trend with socializing and the internet. Before ~instantaneous communication in global forums, you had to "make do" or compromise with how you socialized among your peers, since you were limited to the immediate geographic area (less as you grow older and potentially get access to cars/more autonomy). But now, you can literally just take your socializing elsewhere, it's a "buyers" market for socializing where, if you don't like your current social network, you can pretty easily drop it and go somewhere more comfortable for you. This is great from a curated safety standpoint but it breeds dependence on these social escapes. I think parallels nicely with "fight or flight" where you can either try to fight for your social standing in your current environment, or flee to a more welcoming one. If you always choose flee, you'll always be satisfied by some other group socially (assuming you can find one, which should be pretty easy on the internet) but you'll never learn how to handle social conflict in a healthy manner, and thus your boundaries of acceptability shrink more and more as you mature and come to better understand what you want (or at least what you dislike). I think it's similar to having too hygienic an environment when growing up, your body doesn't adapt to various allergens and you end up less healthy the curation. Or the cliche spoiled child, who grows up to become extremely difficult to work on a team/interact with in general because they're not learned in compromise and are incapable of comprehending "not getting their way." Technology in general allows us to better enact our will, which I think is also slowly spoiling those who fully take advantage of it. Just like it's healthy to keep physically and mentally challenging yourself, I think emotionally challenging yourself is also healthy, and while you don't need to seek out difficult social interactions, I think it's healthy to try to solve the problems without simply avoiding them. edit: for age context, i'm in my mid-twenties

red_blobs 10y ago

Friendship needs to be earned, or it won't really mean anything. Bullying is a terrible thing and needs to be stopped, but this will do little to help out the person being bullied in the long-run. I was bullied in middle school and finding a good group of friends is what stopped it. But I had to do it myself and earn it.

downandout 10y ago

This app has wonderful intentions, but I fear that it won't work in real life. By merely downloading the app, kids will be labeling themselves as bullied. This opens up a variety of new avenues for bullies to ply their trade - from new insults ("You're such a loser you had to install that Sit With Us app") all the way up to sociopaths that install the app and extend a fake invitation to sit with them for the express purpose of further victimizing their targets. Bullies will weaponize any means of escape that their victims attempt to utilize. Perhaps a more effective app would be one that lets parents register to field complaints about their kids' behavior from anyone.

tinus_hn 10y ago
The app is both for children who are bullied and those that want to help, so that kind of spying wouldn't work. Plenty of children do want to help but don't know how and this idea can help. Surely a bullied child won't be invited to the popular kids clique but having some normal people to talk to is a great start.
- downandout 10y ago
  >Surely a bullied child won't be invited to the popular kids clique My fear is that they indeed will be invited as a joke, only to meet with in-person rejection. Along the lines of "HAHAHA you thought that was a real invitation?".
  - anotheryou 10y ago
    I also wondered how this could work. Maybe et people vote against abusers and have some local teachers with veto power (usually they know who is bully and who gets bullied I think). Especially positive votes could be less likely to be faked, it would require more work to fake reputation than to abuse the abuse-button. edit: A much easier solution: Educate the bullied on how the system could be used against them and that they simply have to glance over if it's the bullies sitting at the table or normal kids. I think most bullies are just joining in, but wouldn't initiate setting someone up. The worst however will initiate such a thing, but those are probably already known to you as a bullied.

niftich 10y ago

This isn't for the 'being pushed around' kind of physical bullying, it's essentially for social matchmaking. I'd argue that excluding a certain person from one's social circle isn't (and shouldn't be counted as) bullying -- I'm not sure whether it is or isn't -- but social exclusion from multiple disparate groups will manifest as being ostracized, and that's the problem this is trying to solve. I applaud the good intentions but social networks (in the traditional sociology sense) in schools will transcend real-life/online boundaries and service boundaries, so school-age people's friends on Snapchat are largely the same as their friends in the classroom and lunchroom, and vice versa. The only potential I see here is the a discreet 'lowkey' way of broadcasting good intentions that a particular person is friendly, but this relies on that person's intentions being authentic; which is an unsolved problem.

alexandre_m 10y ago
Like you said, it's for matchmaking on the spot during lunch hours. I don't see the problem, I applaud the initiative. It solves a simple issue: where do I sit when I know no one. For those who are ambassadors, you can make new friends.

AWildDHHAppears 10y ago

Won't the bullies use this app to lure "losers" over and then make fun of them? I don't see how this will help.

kazinator 10y ago

I'm trying to think how this kind of app might be an improvement over a folded-over piece of cardboard which says "sit with us", placed on an actual table. Or a notice on a bulletin board. The problem that the bullied kid looking for a place to sit is stuck in one school, with one lunch room. All the viable tables are "captive" in that one room; the "UI" for selecting one can be that room itself. Even if there are a couple of rooms, that just means a small search. It seems that "find stuff" type apps really only make sense over a metropolitan area, because you don't have a overview of that area; you don't know what is happening where without an information feed. There is less incremental environmental impact. Even if the cardboard sign is re-used many times, it still has more of an environmental footprint compared to one more app on the phone.

iamthepieman 10y ago

When I was a kid I hit another kid in the nose with a wooden block because he was picking on me and another boy who were trying to play peacefully with said blocks. I immediately regretted it to the point where it is one of the most vivid (and only) memories I have from that period (I was 4. it was pre-school) I think I meant to threaten him but instead gave him a bloody nose and sent him to the nurse. I distinctly remember (this said in my 35 year old voice, I doubt it was this clear a thought at 4) vowing to not use violence ever again to solve my problems. That said, the boy never picked on me or anyone around me again. There is no moral to this story.

ARothfusz 10y ago

How did she create it? What did she use as a development framework or a back end? How is she funding her servers and databases?

shruubi 10y ago

Like most commenters, I was also bullied relentlessly in high school. And, as it seems most other people have been told to do, I took the advice of "do nothing and ignore it" route. Here's the thing, it's all well and good for an adult to tell a kid "oh just ignore it", but you can't ignore someone sneaking up behind you and slamming your face into a brick wall, so of course, adrenaline coursing through you, you retaliate. Now, despite you being attacked out of the blue, for no reason other than some sadistic asshole gets his jollies out of hurting you, and you trying to defend yourself, when teachers dole out the punishment you also get punished. A system that punishes a kid that was assaulted from behind because they tried to defend themselves from their attacker is not a system that is designed to prevent bullying or help the bullied. The reason every kid in every school thinks all those anti-bullying programs are stupid and don't want to participate is because they realize something that the teachers don't, which is that it is nothing but bullshit lip-service to make those whose responsibility it is to actually do something feel better about their absolute lack of care or effort.