Ask.fm
Hot on the heels of Twitter, I see now Ask.fm are now in the firing line.
Lots of big name sponsors are withdrawing their accounts because a girl committed suicide after being “bullied”?
This baffles me. Why on earth are they attacking Ask.fm? It would be just as logical to attack the makers of the mobile phones or laptops the kids are using to access the site.
There are two solutions to this on-line bullying thing.
One is that society can spent the next infinite years chasing down websites such as Twitter and Ask.fm and blaming them for the ills of society when it’s none of their fault.
Or society will just have to come to terms with the simple fact that kids always have and always will bully each other.
Kids are not inherently bad [well, they are but that’s a different story]. However like all animals, once they realise there is a social order out there they start their fight to establish themselves in the pecking order. It is really a very simple biological fact. Whether it’s puppies having mock fights on the sitting room carpet or children calling each other names, it all boils down to one thing – who is going to be top dog. They don’t even realise it but it’s in their genes – it’s all part of the evolution process.
The problem, if it is a problem, with the Interweb is that it is quick, convenient and on the face of it, anonymous. This makes it an ideal medium for the bullies. If you shut down Twitter, they will move to Ask.fm. Shut that down they will only move somewhere else.
There is only one way to deal with this “problem” and that is to tell kids at an early age that bullying exists and teach ‘em how to deal with it – ignore it, or fight back. You can’t tell kids not to bully because it is hard-wired into them.
I heard some bloke on the radio last night talking about this problem and the point he made was that kids nowadays judge their own popularity not on the number and quality of friends they have but by the number of “”likes” they have on Facebook. I find that almost unbearably sad, but it is just a symptom of the modern shallow society that seems to have developed, that is more interested in “celebrity” gossip and Facebook “likes” than it is in the real world.
It’s at times like this that I’m glad I am the age I am and not just setting out on my journey through life.
I agree 100% with you. I could never understand the attraction of Facebook or Twitter or any other such site but I think the problem must be with the kids and not the sites. I'm quite sure playground bullying was/is probably a lot worse than someone anonymously calling you names on the internet but I don't recall hearing about any suicides as a result of it.
I had a look at Ask and it's a ghastly site full of LOLs and Awesomes. It's basically twitter for kids.
I must say I'm at a loss when it comes to kids killing themselves. When I was that age I don't ever remember hearing about any suicides, and God knows there was enough bullying going on. We just dismissed it as part of the order of things and put up with it.
Amen! On all counts.
Totally agree, GD. You have to also take into account the amount of mollycoddling, overpraising and all round general arsewiping that today's parents engage in with their kids. They might think they're doing their best but in actual fact they're either turning them into a) horrible overbearing tyrants, or b) soft little shites who bawl like an ass from a paper cut.
Speaking from a personal perspective, a little kick in the arse or a clip on the head never did me any harm growing up. And of course who do we blame for the demise of that?
Agreed. I went to a boarding school and got many a lash from the teachers over the years. Never did me any harm. Well, not as you'd notice!!!!
Spot on. Kids these days are far too protected against the rough and tumble of life. They need to get out there and get scraped knees and bruised egos. The need to play in the dirt [literally and metaphorically] and generally have fun.
Several years ago, Tim Benners-Lee did an interview about his wonderful new creation called the Internet. The Father of TCP/IP was specifically asked if he felt responsible for all the porn on the net. (God bless whoever is).
But, Tim simply said the net is a carrier and its content is a reflection of the societies we live in. Driven by supply and demand with profits the motive. Society used the new medium as a mirror image of itself. The problem is not the messenger it's the message.