Sunday, February 6, 2011

Viewers say kids are meaner. I say they just have more ways to be mean

On Friday night, Fox 25 News in Boston asked their 6 p.m. viewers whether kids are meaner now than they were before; most viewers said yes. But I came on at 10 to say that I think kids aren't necessarily meaner in this day and age, but they do have more opportunities to be mean, and in much more public ways, than they had just a few decades a go. Take a look:




As I wrote the other day at Yahoo!'s Shine, it's easy to chalk bullying up to a lack of basic values and inattentive parents -- too easy, I think. With today's technology, a person can bully someone they've never even met -- the backlash over 11-year-old Jessie Slaughter's videos are just one example -- and the psychological bullying engaged in by girls relies on having a good grasp of social norms, not an inability to understand them.

What do you think? Watch the clip above and weigh in: Are kids today meaner than the ones you encountered when you were a kid?

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