Bullying today is different than bullying of yesteryear with modern technology ballooning the size and scope of its reach and impact. Today, kids can't just taunt each other in the schoolyard but also in the virtual world, sending barbs over Twitter and posting nastiness on Facebook. And then there is texting, where picked-on students can be inundated with rude texts ... or worse, have rumors spread all over with a mere tap of a few buttons.
The landscape of bullying has changed dramatically in the last 20 years. But if a Wall Street Journal op/ed piece is to be believed, then childhood today is actually much better than it was in recent memory. "[I]s America really in the midst of a "bullying crisis," as so many now claim? I don't see it. I also suspect that our fears about the ubiquity of bullying are just the latest in a long line of well-intentioned yet hyperbolic alarms about how awful it is to be a kid today," writes Nick Gillespie, editor in chief of Reason.com.
Gillespie purports that the problem isn't bullies but rather that those who are teased and taunted feel powerless. Also, that the definition of bullying today is just way off base. It's an uncommon look at a problem that we've been hearing much about lately.
Read the full article here.
Meanwhile films like Bully and Stop Bullying: Speak Up are bringing more attention to the important issue of bullying by shining a spotlight on the children who are taunted, teased and belitted in schools. Documentaries like these contain heart-wrenching scenes of real-life bullying that's happening on school buses, in classrooms and elsewhere.
So what's the truth of bullying today? Is Gillespie right? Or do the films show what's becoming more frequent today? Or is it somewhere in the middle of these two?
 
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