There is nothing more heart-wrenching, devastating and sickening than reading about someone who died at the words -not hands- of someone else.
Bullying.
It's been around since the dawn of humanity but in the past few years, since the wake of the Internet, has reached what can easily be described as an epidemic.
Todd Loik, 15 of North Battleford, took his life a couple of weeks ago. His distraught mother, Kim, said he'd been bullied since the fifth grade, and it had expanded to cell phone texts and online messages.
She's sure it was bullying, especially cyberbullying, that killed him.
A study in Canada showed that over 50 per cent of high schoolers have been bullied on the Internet; 41 per cent by text messages.
Thanks, technology.
We can all applaud computers and the Internet and social media and smartphones for revolutionizing convenience and amping up our quick-draw in life but we can also thank them for being the bellows to the fire that is bullying; they only make the flames greater.
Years ago, if a child was bullied, it ended on the school grounds. The victim could return to the safe confines of their home and to some peace and quiet until the next day. And maybe by that time, the bully had moved on to someone else.
But now, it's everywhere. If you're not being bulled in the hallways, then it'll be through text messages. If not that, then Facebook or other social media. If not that, then e-mail. If not that, then some other Internet forum.
Kids can't escape it anymore. It's everywhere and all-consuming, just like a bad rash. And that's why the rates of teenagers - KIDS - committing suicide due to bullying has skyrocketed.
Technology has removed any accountability people have to the things they say. It lets them hide behind their cell phones or computers, saying awful, hurtful, disgusting things, because they're not able to see the reaction of the person on the other end; the crushed look that takes over their face, the anguish, the hurt feelings.
The despair.
So they keep doing it. And doing it. And doing it. Sometimes even anonymously, behind a fake username or e-mail.
Louis C.K. is my favourite comedian, not just because he leaves me with stomach ulcers from laughing so hard, but because he always just seems to "get" the issue. He has an enviable way of knocking out the garbage and getting straight to the point, to the real problem. He's incredibly intelligent, insightful and his take on smartphones on a recent Conan O'Brien interview is bang-on:
I think these things are toxic, especially for kids...they don't look at people when they talk to them and they don't build empathy. You know, kids are mean, and it's 'cause they're trying it out. They look at a kid and they go, 'you're fat,' and then they see the kid's face scrunch up and they go, 'oh, that doesn't feel good to make a person do that.' But they got to start with doing the mean thing. But when they write 'you're fat,' then they just go, 'mmm, that was fun, I like that.'
Exactly.
It's not just technology that is the problem. It's the potent cocktail of technology and insecure kids.
We all had that period in our life growing up where we wanted to fit in and for people to accept us. Some kids, for whatever reason, take it to extremes and crush others to build their own confidence.
But they do it now as a faceless 140 characters on Twitter. Or a faceless Facebook wall post. Or a faceless e-mail or text message.
They're no longer a person but a malicious entity. And entities don't have feelings.
And parents are just an accessory to the crime when they give their kids in that age group a cell phone or let them spend hours on social media sites; they're supplying them with the weapon and the free-range to do whatever the heck they want with it.
Except they're not mature enough yet to fully comprehend the complexity behind these devices.
Would you give your kid a gun? No, because they're not smart enough to know how to use it. Someone could get hurt.
But we give our kids cell phones. And let them have Facebook profiles. And spend hours on a computer.
And guess what? Kids are getting hurt. Kids are feeling they can't escape the bullying. Kids are taking their own life.
So, yeah, you do the math.
Save a kid, ditch the smartphone.
CM
