Cyber Fear!

Our kids are being turned into hyper-violent, socially crippled introverts. Also they’re fat. And lots of them are pregnant, but that’s for another rant. It’s all the internet’s fault apparently. I feel bombarded by a certain scaremongering brand of journalim. Big scary buzz words abound, cyber-bullying being my particular favourite. It implies some sort of dystopian future (or present) shot with a pale blue filter where malevolent teens, presumably on drugs, in some basement full of mismatched LED screens are using their arcane knowledge to torment your poor child in ways you can’t prevent and to much greater effect than anything that came before. Its true kids are bullying each other on Facebook and by text but that said they bully each other on the bus, in school, at football practice, and pretty much everywhere else there’s more than one child. The ‘cyber’ realm may be the one exception where kids actually find it possible to avoid the onslaught. Facebook, for all the criticism it’s received on the subject, does in fact have many features to make your profile as private, secure and discriminating about who can contact you as you like (if you’ll excuse the turn of phrase). If you’re receiving threatening messages block the user who’s sending them. Kids using social media to torment their peers is obviously an issue but to label it “cyber-bullying” lends it far too much sinister gravitas. To invoke the ‘cyber’ element of the bullying as though it makes the act somehow different is purely a ploy by newspapers with middle aged readers to frighten and outrage said readers.

Texts are much trickier however. Kids are rarely inclined to call the police to track a number sending offensive messages. Kids not talking about being bullied is a big part of the problem. The core of the issue is of course the anonymity that these media provide the tormentors. They can say things in a text that they would never dare say in person. Even the bullies themselves may be unaware of the extent of the trauma their words create. It’s an easy effect to see. Anyone who’s ever scrolled through the comments of a vaguely controversial Youtube video can see how easily people become disconnected from the words they type. It’s caused by not having a face to speak to and in a way having none to speak from. Their words don’t have the power of a personality or name to give what they say any weight, so they unconsciously ramp up the extreme language, vulgar turns of phrase and as we’re all too aware, the caps lock. They are literally screaming to be heard and noticed in a world of a billion equally ignorable voices. One would be forgiven for assuming that kids raised in this environment would be somewhat desensitized to anonymous usernames screaming caps locked swearwords at them but of course it’s the personal nature of the messages that gets to the victims.

A perfect example of the disconnection between ones words and their effect can be seen on Xbox Live. I’m not a regular visitor to the digital killing fields of Call of Duty but in the few forays I have made it’s been the voices in the headset that upset me far more than the gunshots screams and blood splatters. Trying to wander around an abandoned airport and shoot people would have been much more enjoyable if it weren’t for the team of rabid fourteen year olds roaring the kind of language that would turn heads in a Scorsese film. Again it’s because the kids doing the shouting cannot see their words hit the mark. Not that I was reduced to tears or anything. I can handle having my sexuality questioned every time I shoot or fail to shoot an opponent. But it’s an interesting incubator for vulgarity. It’s a war zone in there and healthy attitude or not a lot of players are heavily invested in their kill/death ratio. For the parents passing the bedroom door, it’s understandable why they believe the game is driving their son into some kind of murderous frenzy. Maybe it is but when you understand the game a little better it’s not dissimilar to the crowd at some strange football match where every shout falls on deaf ears, every player is against every other and the referee is a faceless unreasonable machine. This doesn't prevent the scaremongers from constantly questioning if violent games make violent kids. It seems very odd to me to hear shooting games scapegoated as the catalyst for real world shootings. The Grand Theft Auto series is a prime example. Particularly in the U.S! To claim it’s the games kids play that makes them obsessed with war, guns and murdering in one of the most militarised countries in the world is madness. It’s a country recently involved in two wars where anyone who shoots people for a living is hailed as a hero and automatic weapons seem to be so common people must be tripping over them in the streets. The games are affected by society not vice versa.

Much of the media makes use of peoples fear and ignorance of modern digital trends. The fear of the unknown draws people to these articles. They want to know more but maybe subconsciously they want to be offended by what they learn. It’s the media’s responsibility to inform these people, allay their fears and reassure them that we’re not sinking into some kind of William Gibson style dystopia and that at the end of the day people are just people. They use new ways to communicate and interact but apart from that not much has changed.