Yeah, I think we're talking past one another.
I don't want anyone to think I don't hear you. I do.
On the one hand, I (and probably Les) agree with you that people losing their minds over #firstworldproblems or being overly dramatic over minor things is something that ALSO wouldn't have gotten a megaphone or even noticed back in the day. And they clog the bandwidth with idiotic stuff that only inflames the situation. A girl complains about getting the wrong color Porsche for her 16th birthday and in almost every case, her immediate family realizes what a terrible person she is and that's it. Now, that gets posted and becomes a platform for a third of the planet to weigh in. The disproportionality of it is just staggering. And I'm the last person to defend entitled people.
That said, if you've never been doxxed or seen it happen...or been SWAT'd or seen it happen, it's terrifying. It's real. People have died and been seriously injured.
There have been people, especially women, who've had to move multiple times, change jobs multiple times and STILL can't get away from their legion of virtual stalkers because once they get the digital trail, it's almost impossible to sever it short of going off the grid.
When a high ranking Blizzard employee wanted to defend RealID (a system where people posting on their gaming forums would have to use their real names), to illustrate how bad an idea that was, the community doxxed him. HARD. Posted satellite photos of his house and a host of very private information. That never comes down (thanks Google Archive). And that took all of TEN MINUTES. And because of jurisdictional issues, even viable death threats can't be acted upon by law enforcement in most cases.
Also, a problem that doesn't get talked about is that young people form DIFFERENT types of relationships and attachments than we did. They have far more attachments, but they are generally much more superficial even as the tenuous connections run very deep. That means that while a person may pour their heart and soul out there looking for deep and meaningful connections, they have come to understand that it's not. Anyone can disappear at any time and even people who know their most intimate details could change their status or take umbrage at one statement or post and now their the "enemy".
You and I simply wouldn't put out that information in the first place. We came from a more guarded time.
But, as my kids have pointed out to me rather starkly, they can't have what I and my wife have. It's almost impossible to form the kind of deep connections we have in this current climate.
Young people will own this in time as they realize that they always had other choices.
That said, there are big companies making many billions of dollars to keep people engaged in drama. That's not healthy. Follow the money.
We won't have utopia because there's no money in it.
So when some kid in school who's already vulnerable gets picked on, it's not just at school. It's like saturation bombing. It's something like you and I have never experienced. It'd be like living with your worst enemies night and day. And in this digital age, to just say, "go analog, kid" is beyond ignorant and ignores the realities of daily life. None of us could "go analog" fully anymore. It's not possible.
Social media and the pros and cons are terribly complicated.
It's never as simple as saying, "toughen up" or "just ignore it". If it were, there wouldn't be multibillion-dollar companies feasting on everything from the Petabytes of data generated as well as the attention.
As well, just like it didn't work for our parents to use the word "just" when it came to our generation, it doesn't work to use "just" when addressing the current generation.
Especially when we have active bad actors both corporately and individually in the mix.
It'd be like blaming someone for jaywalking during an active shooter event. Without the active shooter, absolutely, don't jaywalk. If they're prancing down the street holding up traffic? Heck no. But during? That's an entirely different matter and when people kill themselves (btw, it's not just teens killing themselves, but middle age white men are the fastest growing suicide group), that in and of itself is reason enough to take it more seriously, both in cause and effect.
I don't disagree with you that the petty stuff that gets magnified to infinity is still petty stuff and that needs to be dealt with as the petty stuff it is.
I just also acknowledge that there is a real threat with real dangers out there where we can count the bodies, identify the bad actors and see the effect of the real problem.
They're not the same, but there are instances where they overlap.
Lastly, since when are feelings bad? I ask this because kids today get hammered for being open about how they feel. As in, I hear often, "it doesn't matter how you feel, do it anyway." The greatest gift my daughter gave me in her passing was the ability to feel. I was so closed off before. She broke my heart wide open and I recognize that gift every day.
I dunno why we have to go through failed marriages, disenfranchised children, bouts of self-destructive self-medication and all that only to realize that we had to get in touch with our feelings (because they really matter whether we acknowledge them or not)... and then tell others, especially the youth... "buck up kid, life's rough. No one cares how you feel."
Seems like the perpetuation of a destructive cycle to me.
I could be wrong, but it doesn't feel like it...