Wednesday, August 25, 2004
Bullying and the internet
No, this isn't about Swift Boats: it's about the old-fashioned kind of bullying that happens between kids on the playground---and now on the internet.
There are several interesting points here, some explicit, some beneath the surface:
1. The internet is a medium, so as usual internet innovation takes the form of an expansion of an old phenomenon into a new context. A little re-invention, but mostly just expansion or substitution.
2. The speed of the internet, the cheapness of copying electronic messages, the ease of composing them, and the seeming ephemerality of electrons once again makes social interaction more fluid, coarse, and broad than before.
3. The internet saves a permanent record, so now adults can more easily see what's going on with their kids. And they may be surprised at how ugly children can be to each other, and just what a large fraction are either bullies or bullied. They may also be surprised at how knowledgeable children are about sex. Neither fact should be a surprise to anyone who's under 30 (40? 50? 100? I can only speak for what was obvious when I was a child).
There are several interesting points here, some explicit, some beneath the surface:
1. The internet is a medium, so as usual internet innovation takes the form of an expansion of an old phenomenon into a new context. A little re-invention, but mostly just expansion or substitution.
2. The speed of the internet, the cheapness of copying electronic messages, the ease of composing them, and the seeming ephemerality of electrons once again makes social interaction more fluid, coarse, and broad than before.
3. The internet saves a permanent record, so now adults can more easily see what's going on with their kids. And they may be surprised at how ugly children can be to each other, and just what a large fraction are either bullies or bullied. They may also be surprised at how knowledgeable children are about sex. Neither fact should be a surprise to anyone who's under 30 (40? 50? 100? I can only speak for what was obvious when I was a child).
