Teens- A Ticking Cyber Bomb

"Armed, online and dangerous", Sunday Times, 6 May 07

This article made me think. Really think. Its not everyday you get to read so disturbing news, even though you know that it has been going on around you.

Splashed upfront on the think section of the Sunday times last Sunday, this article was chiefly about the amount of cruelty, malice and harm teens today can unleash online. Written in response to teens abusing their online publishing power to wreak vengeance on others, it included examples such as the June 2006 video posted online of a group of girls bashing up a peer and others.

According to the article, teens nowadays have a greater capacity for causing destruction in short periods of time because of how connected they are over the internet. Unlike teens and journalists of the past, who had no access to such powerful tools of communication, teens today can vent their angst, condemn their ememies, bully their peers, and expose dirty little secrets online, all with a click of a button.

The quick span of time between the thought and the deed leaves little time for consideration of consequences. Buffered by anonymity and the excuse that what they post is "private", many of them continue to slander, malign, accuse, shame, and attack others online.

These teens show no remorse at all even if their actions are found out. Some even expressed a perverse sense of power and pleasure when exacting their revenge online.

Angst-ridden teens broadcasting their opinions and negative comments is not a new phenomenon. Throughout the ages, the youth have found their own ways to express their thoughts and "personal" feelings. Now, such "personal" feelings are becoming more and more publicised and available for all to see.

The youth of today have at their disposal weapons of mass destruction to spread ideas online, deployed at a terrifying rate. There are so many ways and forms of expression on the Internet such as blogs, video hosting sites, chatrooms, email...the list is endless. I'm sure many of you reading this blog would have blogs of your own, some of which are quite popular and well-visited. Most of us frequent a chatroom or use a messenger service which instantly allows us access to large groups of people all at one time. Some of us would know how to post videos, start vlogs and websites and so on. With one tap of the keyboard, information can be disseminated within seconds to many people continents away. And all of it is so convenient and so popular that few of us if any would even pause to consider the implications of our actions in the heat of the moment.

Feels great, doesn't it? Feels wonderful that you have the power to influence hundreds of minds, eternally shame your rivals, bully multiple victims multiple times, all without ever leaving your seat and within a span of a few minutes?Doesn't it just give you an absolute sense of superiority and immunity?

Unfortunately for our society there are a number of adolescents who choose to follow the warped logic of this and are a danger to their peers both online and offline. And their number is growing. These youths, unfettered by censorship, controlled viewership and long waiting timespans for audiences practically have free rein over the Internet. They are unabashedly out to malign and slander others and humiliate them, with no qualms whatsoever to what happens after that.

Can these teens ever understand their capacity for causing widespread hurt and damage to others? Can they ever be made to understand their wrongdoing? I think not. Their callous indifference to the feelings of those around them just shows us how much these teens are beyond redemption. However, as psychologists/ sociologists/ experts battle this problem largely out of sight, we must also ask ourselves whether we have been unknowingly been caught up in this trend of being to callous in our expression of our feelings.

Have we taken our freedom of expression too liberally and sometimes abuse our right to say what we want? Just because the Internet offers us a platform to air our views doesn't give us the right to say what we want.

Unfortunately, in the heat of the moment some of us say what we don't mean at times, and later regret it. by the time we realise the impact of our actions, the damage has already been done: the victim has been ostracised, the self-righteous fellow blogger has fired back, friends have been hurt, and sometimes the law has been broken. Take the 2005 case of a blogger being fined under the sedition act due to his angry, insensitive remarks against the muslim community here. For him, regret came too late.

Likewise, must we wait for someone to tell us what we are doing is wrong before we correct ourselves? Can't we as mature, thinking youths of society judge what is meant to be private and what can be shared? Must we always lose our self-restraint and only look back later to realise what we've done wasn't exactly beneficial to anyone?

This shouldn't be. Lets not act rashly when broadcasting our views to our audiences. No man is an island, what he says and does will affect others around him.

As the overrated quote goes, with great power comes great responsibility.

If I might add on, with great responsibility also comes graet effort. We must therefore conciously put in effort to censor our words such that they are still palatable for public consumption.