The horror of suicide

[The Pecman]

Having a cell phone is not a right. If a kid has an emergency, i.e. The parents need to contact them, they can call the school. If the kid needs to talk to a parent, they can do that through the office.

If you know how integral Twitter and text messages are to average teenagers, you might see that taking away a cell phone would almost be as bad as disconnecting somebody from the net these days.

Forbidding cell phones won't stop things like this from happening. Have you seen the size of GoPro cameras? Last I checked, those were not forbidden in any school in the world.

It's very, very hard to legislate against bad behavior. There's always going to be assholes who screw things up and infringe on our freedoms. Look at the police who knock heads together the moment they're making an arrest and somebody tries to shoot them with a video camera. From my perspective, that should be allowed, simply because it's freedom of expression. If the cop is doing nothing illegal, he or she should have no fear of having everything they do get recorded. But in some areas, they can arrest you for interfering with the law. Are they right?

Seriously, do we need a school rule that says, "do not record images or sounds of naked people at school?" It all goes back to people having terrible judgement and not understanding the repercussions of bad behavior.

I would really love to get hold of the kid with the camera and ask him, "what the F were you thinking?" I'd really like to know their thought process and what they thought the outcome would be. Look at it this way: if he did this in a bus bathroom downtown, or a locker room at the Y, and was recording naked people, what would happen to him? If the phone had stayed in his pocket, a boy would still be alive, nobody's rights would've been violated, and the world would be a less-horrible place than it is at the moment.

[The Pecman]

BTW, for those following along, these pictures are of Matthew Burdette, the kid who killed himself:

And here's a story on the UK Mirror, basically repeating what we already know:

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/teenager-took-life-after-being-3864947

[Cole Parker]

I presume the same strategy could be used to bring a gun into the school. Surely the technology exists to detect both guns and cellphones upon entering the building.

You anticipated me, James. That's what happens when you live three time zones east of me.

I think removing cell phones from the kids at school has ancillary effects. It isn't just to stop something like this from occurring. It also is to help focus the kids' minds on the lessons instead of everything that they're hooked up to through the phones.

And Pec, if a kid brings a secret camera on campus and then takes a picture like he did with his ever-present cell phone, the incident would be more egregious, don't you think? Having the phone made it an impulsive gesture. Having a camera that's meant to be clandestine adds a dimension to it that takes all doubts of innocent or prankish behavior away.

C

[Bruin Fisher]

The Daily Mirror, along with the Sun, Express, Mail and Star, are the UK's gutter press and delight in sensational articles catering to a prurient and often hypocritical readership. This article in the Mirror online is a good example of that, referring as it does throughout to Matthew 'performing a sex act' rather than simply stating that the poor lad was having a quiet wank. To my ears 'performing a sex act' sounds salacious and sets my mind imagining that maybe he was buggering a goat. That's the kind of writing that keeps these stories alive and does further damage to the lives of innocent people - and the kind of thing along with phone hacking etc. that several official enquiries here in the UK are currently considering with a view to curbing the freedom of the press to prevent such abuse in the future. If they get hamstrung as a result they have only themselves to blame, in my view.

Sorry - rant over!

[Hoskins]

Sure kids can lie,they can hide the phones, they can cover for each other - same as it always was.

But a school wide ban on phones makes having one an actionable offense with consequences - in school suspensions, etc.

And kids being disconnected from texting, etc during a school day - I just don't see a downside, not in school.

[Addym Kehris]

If we could make bans like that possible, we'd be making millions for the therapists who will inevitably have to deal with the drug-like withdrawal these kids will go through.

I'd really dislike adding to the therapists' fat pockets, but if it resulted in better educated youth....like Hoskins - I just don't see a downside, not in school.

[DesDownunder]

The cell phone is a two edged sword in the hands of school kids. What we have to remember is that we are adults with adult views of what it's like for kids to have access to this kind of technology.

Parents give their kids cell phones because they want their children to be able to contact them in an emergency, or to contact their kids for any number of reasons. That the phones come with added features of global positioning, social networking, cameras and various games not to mention all the latest features which will become part of their daily lives and eventually, the school curriculum, must not be overlooked.

Whether we oldies like it or not, cell phones are a fact of modern life, and they are far more a part of the child's existence than we can comprehend.

Taking the cell phone away from the child is tantamount to leaving them vulnerable to predators as well as demeaning them in front of the school bullies.

What must it be like to be the only kid in school who does not have a cell phone? Taking away the phone from all kids in a school is not an answer either; that leaves them cut off from the technology they will need for the future employment and the tertiary environment. It's similar to the older initial reaction of parents and schools to forbid children's access to computers.

The answer is probably in the school having a course in responsible use of cell phones and computers from a very early age.

To take the cell away from younger kids is almost like limiting them from reading until they reach year 12, and whilst the attraction has much to do with the phone's extra facilities, it is the way of the future for education and social communication.

Once again the answer is with learning responsible use of technological advances, and that begins by making the technology available, not denying it.

In every era from language to printing, the incorporation of the latest technology into our lives has been the way we have advanced ourselves, our societies and our children's future. Those societies which limited access to such advances are the ones we continually have to confront in the name of science, and in the face of religious superstitions.

The bullies in the school yard, the psychopathic bullies in the workplace, and the tyrants of the battlefield are all the results of denying altruism as a natural part of the human condition. We can educate with care or, abandon the care for nurturing fear and ignorance.

[The Pecman]

Des, thank you for the voice of reason. I agree 100% with what you say. Even if cell phones had been banned, incidents like this could happen provided people act badly, and kids don't think for a moment and see the consequences of what they're about to do.

BTW, I noted that the San Diego court hearing for the camera kid is coming up in a few days. I'll watch the local news sources and see if any additional information is released. I hope they throw the book at the little shit. From my point of view, he's guilty of three major crimes: 1) cyberbullying, making the Burdette kid's life absolutely miserable; 2) child pornography, because he posted a video of a naked underaged teenager on the web; and 3) wrongful death, because his actions resulted in the suicide of his tormented victim. I could make good arguments on all three. If there's any justice in the world, the camera kid will go away for at least 5-6 years.

And I still wish that the Burdette kid's parents file a civil suit against the camera kid's parents. At the worst, maybe they can garnish a few million out of them for their own suffering, and maybe start a charity to help educate kids about the dangers of cyberbullying and why causing someone gross embarrassment could have unimaginable consequences.

[colinian]

I presume the same strategy could be used to bring a gun into the school. Surely the technology exists to detect both guns and cellphones upon entering the building.

That may be true, James. But the number of schools in the U.S. that have metal detectors at each entrance is miniscule compared to those that don't have such devices. A question I'd have is how effective a metal detector is for detecting a cellphone or smartphone. What about kids carrying a notebook PC or a 10" tablet? Both can be used (though more clumsily because of their size) for making calls and following tweets. And what if a cellphone or smartphone was sequestered in a compartment in a kid's backpack and he/she had a notebook PC in there as well? Would the metal scanner detect both? How long would a school with 1,700 students (my high school's size when I was there) or 4,300 students (the current student population, grades 9 through 12, of the high school my dad and granddad both attended)? How many kids setting off the metal detector would cause many of them to be late to class? How about a cellphone detector (they exist)? Easy way around those, just power down your phone.

Okay, Colinian, well done, and point taken. Of course, someone should have thought of that on their own. LOL. Having said that, I have to admit that my ole brain failed in the exercise and I had to be reminded about the deviousness of our youth. You know, they really are smarter than their elders at times.

Well played, my boy.

Addym, I should know about the deviousness of our youth. When I was one of them in high school (not so long ago, 2003-2007) I was called a "cut up" by my teachers and my counselors, and a "class clown" by other kids. And I was masterfully devious. The only reason I didn't get in too much trouble was because of my straight-A average. That didn't include PE. I hated PE because I couldn't stand regimentation.

Colin

[colinian]

And Pec, if a kid brings a secret camera on campus and then takes a picture like he did with his ever-present cell phone, the incident would be more egregious, don't you think? Having the phone made it an impulsive gesture. Having a camera that's meant to be clandestine adds a dimension to it that takes all doubts of innocent or prankish behavior away.

Matthew was in a bathroom cubicle with the door closed. The perpetrator entered an adjoining cubicle, climbed onto and stood on the toilet seat, looked over the top of the partition, and took the picture. It doesn't make any difference whether he used a camera or the camera feature of a cellphone, it was a purposeful act.

Colin

[colinian]

Des, thank you for the voice of reason. I agree 100% with what you say. Even if cell phones had been banned, incidents like this could happen provided people act badly, and kids don't think for a moment and see the consequences of what they're about to do.

BTW, I noted that the San Diego court hearing for the camera kid is coming up in a few days. I'll watch the local news sources and see if any additional information is released. I hope they throw the book at the little shit. From my point of view, he's guilty of three major crimes: 1) cyberbullying, making the Burdette kid's life absolutely miserable; 2) child pornography, because he posted a video of a naked underaged teenager on the web; and 3) wrongful death, because his actions resulted in the suicide of his tormented victim. I could make good arguments on all three. If there's any justice in the world, the camera kid will go away for at least 5-6 years.

And I still wish that the Burdette kid's parents file a civil suit against the camera kid's parents. At the worst, maybe they can garnish a few million out of them for their own suffering, and maybe start a charity to help educate kids about the dangers of cyberbullying and why causing someone gross embarrassment could have unimaginable consequences.

I agree with what both Des and Pec have posted.

Colin

[Merkin]

What are schools for? In each of our nations we have assumed a responsibility for ensuring general public education to a certain level. To what end? Should it include teaching responsible use of the latest technological advances? Or should it exclude the distractions of a world filled with great distraction in order to focus on a core curriculum with specific basic educational aims?

[DesDownunder]

What are schools for? In each of our nations we have assumed a responsibility for ensuring general public education to a certain level. To what end? Should it include teaching responsible use of the latest technological advances? Or should it exclude the distractions of a world filled with great distraction in order to focus on a core curriculum with specific basic educational aims?

I can remember the older teachers at my highschool bemoaning the Biro replacing pen and ink. It is important to realise that the more recent technology needs to be taught in just the same way that the older technology of writing has to be taught. Writing is just an older technology that is now accepted as necessary for learning. How to use a cell phone responsibly is no different than learning that the ink well is not for dipping the pigtail of the girl sitting in front of you, or the pen for stabbing a boy's hand. The thing is, that technological advances can be used to teach the "specific basic educational aims" more effectively than older, and slower methods, but explaining how to use that technology is part of the educational process, including why it should not be misused.

[Cole Parker]

Oh, I certainly agree it was a purposeful act. I seriously doubt, however, that the act was done with any thought at all as to the subsequent, ultimate outcome of that act.

He probably heard sounds that told him what the kid in the stall was doing. And to the adolescent mind, he saw an opportunity not to be missed. But kids don't think long-term; they don't think of consequences beyond the immediate. He probably thought this would embarrass the kid and get himself some notoriety, some approbation, from his classmates. The fact he didn't think it through, that he acted like a kid, is entirely understood by adults, and it is one of the reasons we have both an adult and a juvenile court system.

As a former prankster, you, Colin, must understand this. He saw the opportunity for some wicked fun, and took it.

Of course, I don't know the truth here. I don't know the kid involved. Did he have a history of being a bully, of causing other kids nightmares? Did he like to cause other kids pain and suffering? If that's the case, I'd feel a lot differently about how he should be handled. But if he himself was a cut-up, and was looking for some naughty entertainment and didn't think of the harm it would do, that's a lot different. At least it seems that way to me.

C

[Nigel Gordon]

Yesterday I listened to a piece about brain development of the adolescent, specifically the adolescent male. What was interesting is that the part of the brain that governs the propensity to take risks and explore takes a leap of development at the start of adolescence and becomes fully developed about half-way through adolescence. The part of the brain that identifies and understands connections and consequences does not start to develop until late adolescence.

The simple truth is there are physiological reasons why teenage males spend so much of their time acting in totally stupid ways. It is society's duty to make sure they can't harm themselves or other during their risk taking stage.

[gwilym.pocock]

Hey, why is everyone being so mean about teenagers? :P

(Typed on my phone)

[Cole Parker]

Not mean; real. And of course we're talking average, not everyone. Some teens are very responsible. And of course, a lot of them get the 'nerd' label.

BuT what Nigel said is true. I read about that years and years ago in a class I had in child psychology.

C

[Addym Kehris]

Okay, so what we’re saying is that the psychology experts wish us to believe that there is quantifiable evidence that today’s teens are incapable of living socially acceptable lives until their late teens. And I’m sure that Cole is right in saying ‘in average terms’.

Personally, I’m not so willing to accept these ‘studies’ without more information. To accept these resulting statements, we really need to know more about how they approached their study. How many teens were studied? Did the clinicians study this given group of individuals over the entirety of their adolescence or did they study different individuals in each age group? From what sociological groups were the subjects from? What economic groups? Which ethnic groups? Was there a distribution of candidates from public, private, and home schooling situations? How long did it actually take to complete the gathering of data? How long was spent analyzing said data? How about the clinicians who conducted the study; were they attempting to learn how things actually worked, or were they attempting to prove a hypothesis without any checks and balances to ensure their results didn’t get skewed to support their hypothesis?

And before anyone poo-poo’s the importance of those factors, please think hard. Why wouldn’t those factors influence the results? Those are vital questions that need clarification if we are going to begin making blanket conclusions from these sorts of studies. Too many times we’ve accepted some hard truth based on ‘studies’, only to learn some time later that the studies had been flawed in their inception and their execution.

For what it’s worth, gwilym.pocock, you have my sympathy, for it does indeed seem that there is a lot being said about the basic stupidity of today’s teens. And Cole, I’m sorry that I have to disagree with you, but I do it kindly, I hope. I don’t for a moment believe that we are talking about the ‘average’ teen. I believe that the problem is with a minority. That opinion, and it IS opinion, make no doubt, is based on decades of interaction with teens, hundreds and hundreds of them, through schools where I taught for brief periods, churches, baseball programs. There were always the trouble makers, but they were a very small minority of the groups. The vast majority of those kids (ages 12 – 20) would make a mockery of the study sited.

So, I guess that makes me a cynic.

[The Pecman]

Of course, I don't know the truth here. I don't know the kid involved. Did he have a history of being a bully, of causing other kids nightmares? Did he like to cause other kids pain and suffering? If that's the case, I'd feel a lot differently about how he should be handled. But if he himself was a cut-up, and was looking for some naughty entertainment and didn't think of the harm it would do, that's a lot different. At least it seems that way to me.

In one of the previous links I posted, the parents were able to convince one (and only one!) of their son's former friends to come over and explain to them what happened, because they were totally in the dark. When they specifically asked the friend, "why did the camera kid do this and why would he want to hurt our son?", the reply was, "because your son was so popular." So clearly, he was jealous of the kid's popularity and wanted to take him down a notch, not realizing how devastating this could be.

So apparently, the idea was, here's a kid who's good looking, popular, bright, on two school sports teams... I'll just F with him by posting this 6-second video on Vine. (When I told my partner, "it's incredible that your entire life could be ruined in six seconds," he remarked, "hey, John F. Kennedy was shot to death in six seconds," so he had a point.)

Like I say, I hope they throw the frigging book at him. But remember what happened to the guy at Rutgers who posted similarly embarrassing videos about Tyler Clementi to the web. His bully's charges: 15 counts of invasion of privacy, bias intimidation, tampering with evidence, witness tampering, and hindering apprehension or prosecution. (The main issue there was this was a kid from a very wealthy family who lied in depositions and tried to destroy evidence.) The bully merely got a fine, 30 days in jail, three years of probation, and 300 hours of community service, which I think is totally a tap on the wrist.

I continue to mull over whether you could come up with a fictionalized story of this incident, but my problem is, I can't think of a satisfying third act. If you were a young teenager, how could you possibly recover from an incident like this? Is it possible to just shrug it off and let it go? Is the answer to change your name and move? I can't figure it out, because every possible outcome is pretty terrible and extreme.

[Cole Parker]

The difference between this case and the Clementi case is the ages of the kids involved.

You're right, there's no satisfactory outcome. I don't know how to punish the culprits. I don't know what's fair, or unfair. As Mike said on a similar subject a few years ago, I'd hate to see two lives ruined; we've already lost one.

But it would take the wisdom of Soloman to come up with a satisfactory outcome in this one.

C

[Cole Parker]

Addym:

You evidently never had any psychology courses. I had a couple, but it was far too many years ago to remember stuff very accurately. I know the French or Swiss, something like that, scientist Piaget had a study on maturing children, and had them listed into four types of reasoning and what could be expected to be understood and not understood with each stage. The stages coincided with age groups and development levels.

I don't know how the studies were run, but his work is well-accepted and used as the basis for modern thought. You could look up the specifics of his data collection. I'm sure it's available. You could start with Wikipedia. He's probably listed there and probably at other online sites as well.

I'm not sure you should disparage the study when you're not familiar with it. Makes more sense to me to look into it a little first. It's well accepted today, and other work has been done based on his findings.

C

[Addym Kehris]

Well, there you have it. I'm in the minority. I'm for sending the brat away for an extended period. I also don't see the purpose of any lawsuits that involve simply money. It's likely that the parents of the dead boy will win, but they are unlikely to ever see any of the money. I heard something about putting money won to some foundation or other that will what?...get the message out there that acts like this are criminal? Puleeeese. That message is out there in abundance, and no one is listening.

I suppose the next logical step is to start petitioning our law makers to generate new legislation with the goal of making it illegal for anyone under the age of 18 to possess any technology that could be used in harmful ways towards others, since science has proved that they are incapable of understanding the consequences of their actions. Since these studies will be used to absolve them of any real responsibility for their actions.

I wonder how the scientists who did the studies and came to their widely accepted results would react to the use to which their finding are being put...principally, making it possible for real criminal acts to go unpunished.

[Cole Parker]

Do they go unpunished? I think they get judged in juvenile court if they've broken laws. The punishments they get are more geared to remediation than sheer punishment, but that's on paper. I imagine the situations they live in during their confinement are pretty harsh.

I'm glad a group of people who've been trained to handle this sort of thing makes these decisions. I'd be horrible at it.

C

[Hoskins]

Well, I stuck a Google Alert out there a few days ago to alert me about stories re: Matthew Burdette, because I want to know what that asshole kid is going to be charged with. I may or may not be on a watchlist now. No black helicopters yet, and Chris Hansen hasn't shown up. I may get through this.

But this Google Alert has revealed to me that the people who participate in the comment sections of American news outlets on the Internet represent "that part of the American public that should be sterilized or sent to FEMA concentration camps (which, apparently, these people also believe exist)". Because, wow. Everything from "ban cellphones" (yay) to "the kid was gay for beating off in school" (ew) to "we need better Christian based sex education in schools" to "good for him - that kid deserved it" to "glad he's dead".

It's good to see reasoned debate here. A breath of fresh air, etc.

[gwilym.pocock]

The day you take away our cellphones is the day you take away our freedoms. Cell phones don't bully people, people do.

~ NCA

(National Cellphone Association)