How has the technology that should connect people become an instrument of torture? asks BREDA O'BRIEN.
THIS PROUD mamma and auntie recently enjoyed four performances of High School Musical by the Brian Brady Youth Theatre in Kilcullen. Any production with enthusiastic and talented young people is inspiring, but these shows had a particular poignancy. Every performance was dedicated to the memory of eight-year-old Niamh Myers, who should have had one of the lead roles. Tragically, she was killed in a crash along with her brother, Cian, in February. The loss of a friend was a sobering reminder of the inevitability of pain in life, even for those who are very young.
Perhaps it was that reality that made me see High School Musical with new eyes. The plot concerns a "brainbox" girl and a "jock" guy who discover that they share a love of singing, to the horror of their friends. Although the original film on which the musical is based has good songs, a lot of humour and likeable lead actors, it should have been just another forgettable Disney channel TV movie.
I had never quite fathomed why a film with no major stars had become a virtual cult, not just among tweenies, but among teenagers too. I now think that at least part of its success can be attributed to the fact that it is a modern morality tale.
At one point Gabriella, the "freaky math girl", asks Troy, the "basketball guy", something. "Do you remember in kindergarten, how you'd meet a kid, and know nothing about them, then 10 seconds later you'd be playing like you were best friends, because you didn't have to be anyone but yourself?" It might sound cheesy to adults that the message of the movie is that it is good to be yourself, that your friends may initially resist you defying the norms of your clique but will eventually admire you for it. Even the Queen Bee in the school finally offers a reluctant apology for the harm she has done. In short, it is nothing like real life.
However, when real life has become a very harsh place for so many of our teenagers, you can see the attraction of the cosy simplicity of the world of High School Musical.
In real life, a significant minority of young people have experienced some kind of bullying through the use of mobile phones or the internet. This week Prime Time on RTÉ One television focused on cyber-bullying, and it made for deeply disturbing viewing.
Teenagers victimised and threatened others through text messages. Bored youngsters provoked others into fighting, and then stood around capturing the moment on their camera phones, before uploading it to the internet.
Two aspects struck me particularly. The first was the repeated use of the word "desensitisation". The other was something Dr Keith Holmes said: that there is a duty of care that falls on certain people. "It certainly falls on schools, and on parents, but it also falls on us all. Bullying represents a failure by society."
In face-to-face bullying, there is some hope that a perpetrator will see that they have gone too far. People who resort to cyber-bullying feel free to be as vicious as they like. How did we get to a stage where our young people are so desensitised that they think the appropriate response to a brutal fight is to whip out a mobile phone and start filming?
Cyber-bullying has amplified the ugly tendencies in human nature, and schools are struggling to cope. While individual schools must be held to account if they fail pupils, I think it important to maintain a sense of balance. Many teachers are no more familiar with the world of technology than parents are.
Teachers are also the subject of cyber-bullying. There is the most appalling material about teachers on young people's Bebo and MySpace pages. Parents naturally feel more disturbed when technology is used to attack their children, but adults are deeply affected by cyber-bullying, too.
If Dr Holmes is right, and bullying is a failure of society, then there is a major breakdown in the transmission of values such as kindness, careful use of power, and the ability to empathise. Is it then surprising that a minority see cruelty as a source of entertainment, and others are too cowed to protest? Empathy takes a certain degree of maturity, and exposure to seeing the virtue being modelled. While the use of an expletive in the Dáil this week may seem a minor event, the churlish and aggressive attitudes that preceded it are much more serious.
The norms modelled by prominent adults really matter.
There is another problem. From the time they are tiny, children today spend more time with people their own age than with adults. When young people spend hours at computer screens, parents often don't have a clue what they are up to, or even what they might be suffering. The majority of young people will never bully anyone. However, it is impossible to be complacent about the nature and prevalence of bullying.
There are even risks involved in dealing with bullying through the use of case studies with identifiable young people. Firstly, there is a danger that by showing young people who feel suicidal or develop anorexia, it almost normalises suicide as a response to extreme stress. Secondly, by showing a teenage boy breaking down in tears, Prime Time may have inadvertently exposed this young person to further taunting and torture. There is every possibility that this clip will end up on YouTube.
It is hard enough for young people to learn to cope with the inevitable tragedies that life will bring, without having to cope with malice and cruelty of the type shown in the programme. It would be easy for parents to blame schools for not doing enough, and for schools to accuse parents of burying their heads in the sand. Such an approach does nothing to ensure that our children can experience the safety they deserve. It is only when schools, homes and indeed the whole of society begin to ask the difficult questions, such as how the technology that should connect and support people has become an instrument of torture, that we may begin to tackle this pervasive problem.