A year ago this June a cell phone video
emerged on YouTube of some middle school kids brutally tormenting a bus monitor
named Karen Klein on the way to school.
The video gained national attention and over 32,000 people donated over
$700,000 to Klein. Had the bullying not
been caught on video, the kids would undoubtedly continued to torture the poor
woman, posing the question of how technology has affected bullying.
Growing up I was witness to all
sorts of bullying in elementary, middle, and high school. But cell phones and mainly cell phone video
cameras didn’t gain mainstream popularity until the later part of my high
school career. Now more than ever there
is a HUGE movement against bullying, with claims that it is at its worst. Documentaries are being made, organizations
are being established, and the general awareness for bullying has grown tenfold
since cell phone cameras have come around.
The
question is, has bullying gotten worse or is it just now getting exposed
because of the technology that allows kids to do so? I would argue that bullying has not gotten worse
and that it’s just perceived to have gotten worse because now so many videos
have surfaced of it. The world hasn’t
become a worse place; the media would just like us to believe it has. When I was growing up I saw all sorts of
cruel acts, but none were recorded on video for anyone to see. My grandfather has also told me stories about
bullies when he was growing up. In fact,
it could be argued that the archetypal bully is one created from old movies
that depict bullies such as A Christmas
Story, which recounts a man’s childhood in the 1940’s.
So now
there is this massive movement towards stopping bullying bullying because it’s
seen as such a growing issue. Not that
it’s a bad thing that people are trying to stop bullying, but it’s just a
result of technology being readily available to record it.
