The phone was not the problem. His decision was the problem.
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Well, today was court day for Mo.
- Thread starter huskerman1
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Yes, but technology is a fantastic amplifier of consequences. 30 years ago, guys swapped locker room stories or naked pics with impunity. Today, both the access TO that kind of material, and the consequences OF distributing it are increased a hundredfold.
That's not me condoning his actions. They were stupid. Just saying that technology is a magnificent accelerator of things.
And that girl would have had no social media in which to complain. Or social media in which Mo could have shamed her. The equivalent 30 years ago would have been to hang a billboard in Times Square, which would have likely gotten you jail time.
It's a weird philosophical question because this kind of crime (the sharing, not the taking of photos) wasn't possible or practical for people in the past.
It's like the YouTube video of a guy who mounted a pistol on a drone. He was immediately under investigation by the FBI and the FAA. Who's to say you can't rob a bank that way? Same for the first guy to commit a hit and run.
New technology creates new avenues for crime.
This is news? Same for the 80’s vs. the 50’s.
Yeah, no more waiting for that rotary dial to make its way back. Oh, how I hated 9s in phone numbers!
I think the point being made is it is a lot easier to get into trouble these days then it was years earlier because of the availability of the media exchange.... this shite simply didn't exist years ago. Morals aside, it takes a fraction of a second to hit send in a moment of anger or rage.... and it can cost you a lifetime of opportunities. Kids make mistakes, they didn't used to be so easily discovered and prosecuted via IP addresses.
Yep. And teenagers,(Which is what we are talking about here) will always push the envelope till their hand gets slapped. Before anyone goes with the, "well at 18 we have guys in the military", as an argument about why he should know better. You have probably never been in the barracks.
None of this is to say what he did is correct. Just saying look into all the crappy things you have done in your life. Then ask yourself. Would you want the worst thing you ever did to be front page news? If you say I never did anything that bad. Then feel free to post your dirty laundry here so we can all judge you.
Last of all. Everything has gotten worse from a bullying perspective since the advent of the camera phone and social media. It used to be that a kid would get bullied at school could come home and get away from it. Go to another town or in a city go to the movies outside your neighborhood and get away from it. Now the barrage is 24/7.
Lastly if you were ever a bully in junior high or HS to ANYONE. you would have probably been much worse today then you were then. People bully because it gives them power. In that respect technology is the absolute power. So if Power corrupts absolute power corrupts absolutely.
In other words judge not lest ye be judged.
Great post.
Very well said. My wife and I are teachers, and we have decided to not allow our children to use social media until we're confident that they can handle it. I'm noticing a lot more teachers adopting this approach as well. Why? Because we see every day how kids are being destroyed by this crap, and nobody can quite explain to me how it's worth it. There isn't a day that passes, and usually not a single class that passes, that I don't have a kid who can't stay awake in class. I'm not talking about the students who get comfortable, get bored, and fall asleep; that's normal. I'm talking about kids who are incapable of staying awake, even if I have them stand up, and even if I'm having a conversation with them. Why? They're up all night, every night, either using social media (mostly the girls) or playing video games (mostly the boys). When we have conversations with their parents about it, the parents almost always start from the premise that their child has an inalienable right to the latest smart phone with full access. When/if I try to point out that that's not actually necessary, then they switch to talking about how it's a "safety issue" because the parents need to get a hold of them, etc. When I suggest getting a cheaper, non-smart phone for that purpose, I may as well be suggesting that they live in a cave on a deserted island in the South Pacific. When I also point out that they could confiscate the phones at bedtime, they describe the horrors of trying to pry a smartphone out of the hands of their smartphone-addicted child. I've seen 18-year-old boys start bawling because their phone was taken away.
It's destroying our kids, literally. My school will have a graduating class of less than 20 this year, but we've had 2 suicides in the past 2 years, and there were 16(!) attempted suicides this past school year between August and spring break. They won't publicly release those since then, so I'm sure that there has been more. Social media in the hands of a 13-year-old girl is a weapon of mass destruction. In the hands of a 13-year-old boy, it's a weapon of self-destruction.
By the way, the "episode" that MW sent back to his ex-girlfriend? That sort of thing has happened at least twice in the past 6 months at my school, and those are just the two that were made public. In both instances, it was consensual, and in both instances the girl later regretted it and grew suicidal.
We're destroying our children.
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the cell phone is this gerneation's addiction, perhaps not the most deadly in small groups, but easily the most wide spread and the most difficult to cure. Parent just don't get it, nor do the kids. Read Digital Minimalism to get a hard nose perspective on it.
