Last month a 13-year old Covington, Indiana boy killed himself. His passion was baseball. He had a batting average of around .400 last season, and on the Saturday before he died, he threw a pitch that clocked in at 71 mph. Not surprisingly, he dreamed of playing in the major leagues. But he was relentlessly bullied in school about his hair, or his clothes, or his shoes, and the bullies would always end the tirade with “now go home and kill yourself.”
He finally did.
Many many other kids are bullied via Twitter, TikTok, and Instagram. According to one study, nine percent of kids reported experiencing demeaning, hateful rhetoric. No wonder more than 40 percent of boys and girls said that they’d felt so sad or hopeless at times during the past year they were unable to handle their regular activities. But, girls were far more likely to report such feelings.
This February, Adriana Kuch was attacked by a group of girls as she walked down the hall in her high school. As she dripped with blood, one of the girls videotaped the attack and posted it on TikTok to further humiliate her. Adriana was found dead in a closet in her home two days after the video posted online.
This is not rare. Online bullying is rampant. Even if it doesn’t end in suicide too many children are living under the pall of rejection and hate. Twitter, TickTok and Instagram all have algorithms that amplify expressions of outrage and anger and the senders are rewarded with an increased number of “likes,” “shares,” and responses. Said one pundit, “Social media’s incentives are changing the tone of our conversations online.” Gee, no kidding.
Our children and grandchildren need to hear about these deaths. They need to report bullying, or stop bullying, or get help if they feel they are being bullied. Girls, especially can be the target, and sexual assault over the age of 12, has doubled since 2017.
When we kicked God and the Pledge of Allegiance out of our schools and let bullies run wild, equipped with phones, that are also hand-held video cameras, we opened up a can of hot mess that we haven’t been able to control. Even in China, where TicTok was developed, children are banned from taking mobile phones into schools, can only access the app during certain hours of the day, and are prohibited from playing video games during the week. Yes, even in China they have figured out, that constant use of electronics is bad for kids, and can be used to sabotage interpersonal relationships, saying “the internet is having a negative impact on our children’s physical and mental health.”
OK. Our lives are busy, and work is challenging, but, maybe some of us need to take a closer look at the environments in which our children spend 70 percent of their time. In fact, it may be crucial to your children’s long-term survival to do so. If we don’t have time for that, we may need this: National Suicide Hotline number 1-800-273-8255.
Nancy
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