So, let’s just say a group of teenage girls lures an unsuspecting victim to a gathering wherein she is rapidly turned-upon and beaten unconscious in retaliation for some unscrupulous remarks she supposedly made on her MySpace page. Let’s also say that the girls perpetrating this crime intentionally video-taped it, with the intention of broadcasting it on YouTube.
Would it make sense, in your opinion, to attribute this crime to this existence of MySpace and YouTube?
I think about this often lately.
Does the web perpetuate violence and bad behavior….or does it merely make it transparent?
I survived middle school and high school in the eighties, and I can tell you that incidents like this one were not uncommon. However, no one video-taped them. No one intended to post them on You Tube. And? No one ever got caught.
Just thinking.
1 Comment
Okay. I’ve spent a lot of years pondering the people and the tools. I’m done with blaming tools. I’m gong with makes it more obvious. Those girls chose to do what they did. In the past, it might have been a handwritten note on paper, or an overheard conversation ins the girls bathroom.
The Web provides a louder platform.
But you don’t have to choose to use it that way.
As someone who was once a teen, I know you also don’t have to live like a lemming.
My big deal with my 6 year old right now is learning to make good choices, even when you are excited or the people around you are making bad ones.
I’d rather her learn it now, at 6. And she will or I will die trying. 😉