Should We Be or Are You Troubled By the TIKTOKIZATION of Our Youth? Where Is the Accountability/Consequences?

No, this is not a rant against Social Media. Stay the course.

The New York Times reported on June 6, 2024:?

“Students Target Teachers in Group TikTok Attack, Shaking Their School.”

“Seventh and eighth graders in Malvern, Pa., impersonating their teachers posted disparaging, lewd, racist and homophobic videos in the first known mass attack of its kind in the U.S.”

First of its kind? Maybe I’m living on a different planet…

• Have we not spent years fighting cyberbullying, which way too often has led to suicide? Fighting pretty lamely, as accountability and consequences rarely are in lockstep. BTW...64% of kids on TikTok have a chance of being Cyberbullied, according to one study.
• Didn't the United States Senate, in January, hold a rather contentious hearing on child safety and social media…where TikTok (and Meta to be fair) received the lion's share of heat?
• Didn't New York State recently pass a new law requiring social media companies to restrict addictive feeds for users under 18?
• Did you know that teen accounts that indicate an interest in mental health content primarily show videos related to depression and self-harm?

So, yes, maybe it's first in kind, in terms of 7th and 8th graders banding together in a coordinated assault on adults—specifically teachers—but call it perhaps life imitating life. These are everyday occurrences on TikTok and other platforms as bad actors, nefarious types, evil operators, and villains of all sorts band together and use fake, contrived, edited, and AI-generated content of all sorts to drive hate…create power...or stir up ST—all without accountability or consequence.

And to my point, as reported:

“The Great Valley incident is the first known group TikTok attack of its kind by middle schoolers on their teachers in the United States. It’s a significant escalation in how middle and high school students impersonate, troll and harass educators on social media. Before this year, students largely impersonated one teacher or principal at a time.”

Are you kidding me?!? "Before this year, students largely impersonated one teacher or principal at a time." (As if it's okay if it's only one?!?!)

And as for accountability....

“We never meant for it to get this far, obviously,” one of the students said…. “I never wanted to get suspended.”

There you have it—no accountability…no consequence—only I didn't want to get suspended.

Allow me to frame this in light of the restrictions that China puts on this age group (all kids up to 18, to be clear); suffice it to say, it couldn't happen there.

Again, this is not a rant against Social Media—it's a rant against us.?

You and me.

Think about that kid whose only remorse was not wanting to get suspended despite the people in pain whose character, families, and more have been defamed. There was no shame or guilt for the bad behavior.

How will these children ever recover from their childhoods? They already have poor role models to emulate and bad business models to exploit. They have no accountability and are served with no consequences.

Bottom line? They will grow up as adults who think nothing they do is wrong.

One of my favorite writers, Robert Heinlein, a Science Fiction great who had an uncanny view of the future, has a warning for us:

“Do not handicap your children by making their lives easy.”

My loyal readers know of my deep-seated belief that we need to teach children to think, be ethical, have compassion, and contemplate behavior before we teach them that Tech is all there is…

Frankly, the story of the attack on teachers scares me.

We need accountability. We need consequences.

What’s your view??