And they say media exposure and the internet is not adversely affecting our children.
A story out of
A mildly intellectually challenged girl of early teen age met a couple of boys in an internet chat room.
They all lived in the same suburb, and agreed to meet at the local mall
when she met them however, there was a group of twelve boys,
who forced her away from the mall and down to the local riverbank.
With a DVD recorder in hand, they proceeded to sexually abuse her,
urinate on her, and ultimately, as a joke, set her hair on fire.
Afterwards, they created a DVD of the whole incident,
along with a few other choice things they did
like dropping a flare in the lap of a homeless man, exploding chlorine bombs etc etc.
They created a professional looking front cover and a back cover complete with the names
of some of the boys who took part in it. They then proceeded to sell the DVD at three local schools for money $ 5.00 buys you the kind of sick abuse you cannot fathom these days.
It is not just that they perpetrated these acts that is horrendous, but the callous disregard for
the shame and pain they created with their actions, obviously, not one of these twelve individuals considered for a moment, how wrong these actions were, how damaging to the girl and other people they affected. And it goes further, when confronted with the DVD and the actions of their children, the parents of them tried to shrug off the crime as just a joke, just pranks.
How can we expect the children to take responsibility for their actions, if their parents will not?
Where has the basic distinction between what is right and what is so beyond wrong gone?
Bum fights,
cat fights etc etc are all extensions of the same disturbing trend.
Filming people beating the shit out of each other for entertainment and posting it on the internet is a sickening trend growing in popularity.
Have we as a society become so jaded, so numbed to sensation that we can only find life and awakening through the pain and humiliation of others?
I am sickend
and terrified that this is a world my children will have to live in.
5 comments:
I think these children are sick and deranged, but I think they would be just as sick and deranged with or without the internet. It has merely provided them with the means to contact each other.
It's like people saying money is evil. Money is nothing. It's just pieces of metal and paper. It's the people who have it that are either evil or not. Money only assumes the qualities of the person who wields it, and the same is true of the internet.
It has an equal potential for good as it does for harm. It's the people who use it that assign qualities to it.
Think for example of all the people who are home and unwell or handicapped, unable to get out and about. The internet is a wonderful tool for them.
Think of all the children who live in remote places and can't go to school. The internet is a wonderful tool for them too.
The internet also has the future potential to hugely minimise the amount of fuel we use and traffic congestion we cause in trying to get to work, as more and more people are able to log on and work from home.
There is just as much potential for good as there is for evil on the internet.
I'm absolutely horrified at those children though. It's even more disturbing that their parents weren't horrified!
But why are they sick and deranged?
What have they been exposed to that has desensitised them to the point where they cannot differentiate between right and wrong?
Do you see what I’m saying Moon,
it is not that they are born good or evil, I believe they are exposed to so much which is inappropriate, so much violence, so much pornography, that the effect of these images constantly bombarding them through both the internet and normal media is creating a generation that has lost track of the basic values and morality which makes us human.
Yes, I agree the internet has an incredible power for good and positive things, my contention is though, what if the darker side of it out weighs the benefits?
I dunno ... my boys all played on the internet from a very young age and none of them turned out like that.
I think you have to look at their parents and what sort of parenting they had. Judging by the parent's reaction to what their kids did ... it sort of speaks for itself.
People used to say the same stuff about TV as they say about the internet. I think that people don't watch Tv in a vaccum. I sat and watched things with my kids and tried to teach them how to be discerning about what they watched and how to be critical viewers rather than just blindly consuming whatever was on the screen.
I'm sure you had a close eye on what your kids watched as well, and talk to them and explain things to them about what they're watching.
I dunno ... I'm not excusing all the violence and pornography and stuff, don't get me wrong, not at all. But I think if you took it all away we'd still have the problems we have. I think the causes run deeper than just the TV and internet. It seems too simplistic an answer to me.
I am not saying all of it can be put down to the social evils of the internet and media.
I realise that would be far too simplistic, but I do think the media/internet plays a role in the way our children think and view the world now to a greater or lesser degree depending on how much access they have to either medium.
They are exposed via both to far more violent and sexual images at a younger age than we ever were. How these images affect developing minds and social ethics has yet to be explored, but it is a concern in my opinion.
That's for sure. I'm horrified by the content of some of the so-called 'children's programmes'. Stuff they insist on broadcasting at peak times when kids are watching.
I caught an episode of The Simpsons the other night. Even Zac, who is 14 now, was cringing at what they had on. It was disgusting. I think it was their halloween episode, but I couldn't see anything funny about what they were doing. Certainly not children's fare.
I've always had a huge issue with people who insist on artistic freedom no matter what. I don't think movie and TV people have the right to make whatever they like and throw it at us under the guise of artistic freedom or individual right. When youy live in a society with other people individual rights have to give way before 'getting along with people.'
lol, anyways, that's my soapbox for today. I'll climb down now.
But even Friends ... ugh ... sometimes it's just too explicit for my comfort when watching with my kids, or anyone's kids.
They aren't ready to know about that stuff.
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