I haven't talked about anything very serious in a long time...maybe I won't finish this post and maybe I won't get out everything I want to, but I think I want to try.
There have been a couple of cases in recent times (one had charges announced just recently, another was a year or two ago) in which "cyber bullying" is blamed for a person's suicide. This is a very complicated sort of situation for me. I've been on many sides of this issue at different times -- I will admit that I've been a bully at times and I've definitely been bullied.
I love the freedom that the internet gives people, but at the same time, I think that it causes a sort of magnification of force. When I was bullied as a kid at school and I would take that home with me to some degree, but at least I had some sort of reprieve. When I became online-aware, I was able to use the internet as a sort of release -- I found it to be a soothing way to connect with people in a way that I was almost totally incapable in meat space. However, the internet was very different back then; I chose who I would connect with. I had to give my information out to other people. Sure, someone could email me or IM me, but I could block or filter those messages and I could just get rid of them fairly easily. No one saw the contact except for me. In this age of facebook and myspace and whatever, there seems to be far more opportunities to just search for someone by name and find their little corner of the web.
I don't think the internet is to blame. I also don't think bullying in and of itself is to blame either. Most opponents of laws to punish those who bully kids to the point of suicide take up one or the other of these points. This is a fairly new phenomenon -- in the past internet communication was more like a phone call and less like a Google search. Bullying has gone on probably as long as people have been around. However, they really only get incredibly dangerous when they are used together.
I think the point I'm trying to make is that I'm confused about what should be done legally about this. Now that I'm a bit older, I can easily see that the bullying was so completely pett -- but back when I was the target/perpetrator, it really mattered. How exactly do you draw the line? There have been 5 year olds sent home from school for making finger guns in class -- zero tolerance almost always seems like overkill, but when you allow things to get tinged with gray, nothing ever seems to get done.
I guess I'm just really bummed that there are people who will never get to grow up and realize that what they were going through will really just not matter at all later. In some ways, I think the bullies in these cases will probably wind up punishing themselves enough. I know that if someone I had bullied wound up killing him/herself, I would probably have just fizzled out. On the other hand, though, people do stupid shit all the time and don't care.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
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