2 ms·

It was already our society. This stuff happened when I was in school well before "smart"-phones. The only difference is that now there's actually some data, t

It was already our society. This stuff happened when I was in school well before "smart"-phones. The only difference is that now there's actually some data, third parties are more directly involved in facilitating making records of these things. There still aren't (to my knowledge) the safety monitoring cameras that would actually be an unbiased witness over the school; it's still like a bad daytime only jail rather than a better one with actual security for the inmates. Only now some of them can selectively capture moments in time and share them. So, yes, the problem is a little worse, but it's also more public. Now we as a society can actually have a conversation about the issues and MAYBE, we'll actually have that conversation and POSSIBLY actually advance a little as a culture.

mikeleeorg 8y ago
I think that's the key point here, even if the article doesn't quite highlight it. Technology and social media haven't changed human behavior, but it allows both positive and negative behavior to be amplified multiple times over. And sometimes all it takes is one negative incident to crush an adolescent's self-esteem. We shouldn't discount the positive that social media and technology bestow, just as we shouldn't discount the negative as well. I don't think the problem is just a little worse - I think, for some cases, it's A LOT worse. And that's the frightening thing. Both the positive and the negative are amplified. I dealt with a lot of bullying in school. High school was a nightmare. But at least it's over now and I'm hopefully a stronger person for it. But if the kinds of things that the bullies said or did were recorded on social media and amplified...