So and so is a bitch...pass it on.

Am I just over reacting?


Am I just having the same concerns as my parents generation had for mine?


What impact has the instant and constant communication ability of the internet, email, texting and social media generally had on my children's generation? In particular regarding their peer relationships.


This is where I start with "when I was a girl" and mentally cringe away from my thought pattern. Surely I'm just experiencing the same worries that my parents had when I got my own land-line phone put in my bedroom when I was 16. I'm sure they thought the world had gone to hell in a hand basket. "What is she talking about for hours at a time?" they must have thought.*


The thing is, the actual thing is, that when I was a girl if you wanted to communicate with one of your friends...

Let's make this point - when I was young, if you wanted to communicate, you could generally only do it with ONE PERSON AT A TIME. If you DID want to communicate with a group, you could only do it via the face-to-face method at recess or lunch.

...if you wanted to communicate with one of your friends you only had a few ways to do it. 

1. Face to face
2. Telephone
3. Note in class
4. Ask a friend to pass on a message

Each of these has different impacts to the consequences of this communication, and has different benefits as well.

Face to Face

Even as adults there is a...rein...on what you'll say to someone's face. There's something restraining you from actually saying what your thoughts are thinking. Face to face has some real benefits as a method of communication.

• your body language assists in putting your words into context i.e. you are joking, you are serious, you are half joking to see if the other person thinks it's funny, you are trying to hurt, you are bitter, you are being sarcastic, etc etc etc
• you can see their instant reaction - shock, pleasure, laughter, anger
• their instant reaction may hurt you in some way...sometimes physically!
• it may damage your relationship with that person or build on it

Whatever your intention, or their reaction; there's not too many ways you can deny what you've said, or how you meant it. This communication method is direct and relatively honest. 

The consequences of this method mean it was used carefully and sparingly. When one of my friends was a dick, I did NOT race up to here and tell her to her face. I thought carefully about what I would say and the CONSEQUENCES of saying it. Would I hurt her feelings? What if I say it wrong somehow and might she get upset. Would it change our relationship, perhaps forever.

Telephone

This was used, but rarely. Mostly when I was in my teens, you used the phone at your parents indulgence. Which was given...rarely. It was their phone, which they paid for and was not considered for general free use by the children. When they said "get off the phone" you got off. 

As a communication method it was...ok. You were still restricted by the consequences above, and there were added risks. i.e. you couldn't see their face. This meant that taking those social cues was a little more difficult. All you had was voice volume, speed and tone. So...you had to be extra alert to catch if what you were saying was being accepted, judged or rejected. 

Nevertheless, there was a certain...freedom added to the phone method of communicating. You could USE that whole "I can't see what you're saying" element to your advantage if you wanted. "Oh, that's not what I meant" or "I was only joking" were common plays to calm a friend down once you'd realised you'd said the wrong thing, or gone too far. 

However - you had to do that pretty much immediately because you could hear their reaction, or the silence that followed a particularly stupid statement...it was much more immediate.

And we didn't even have group conversations available on the phone back then; all phone conversations were one-on-one. It's much more difficult, more confronting, to be a bitch to someone one-on-one.

Note in Class

This was mainly utilised to prevent boredom in a particularly dull class, and used more between girls and boys than same sex conversations. Although they did happen. Hand written communication had the element of permanence to it, ensuring that if that note got passed around, there was no denying it's intent. Of course you could destroy it, however...the risk was there...would the person you were talking about see the note...

So notes tended to be silly or jokes or primitive attempts at flirting.

Ask a friend to pass on a message

This was the most risky. Usually used when there was some sort of tension or angst between friends, this method had it's inherent risks as well. You were relying on an ally to accurately portray the communication that you wanted to say. If this ally felt threatened or was looking to increase their status,  or reduce the others...well. The communication might not go quite as you'd have hoped.

All of these primitive communication methods are overlayed over the challenging time of the female adolescent - 13 to about 17. Oh the horrors of the teenage girl; the sheer nasty, manipulative, conniving, unable to shut up, self-absorbed, emotional power of the Teenage Girl.

Now give them constant, unlimited, 24 hr instant communication with not just their direct friends, but their acquaintances, other's friends and acquaintances and people they've never met! And make that communication not face to face. Not verbal. But written. Sometimes in a public forum.

And I think it's the instant element that causes the problems. See above the horrors of the Teenage Girl. You are emotional, self-absorbed and nasty. You have in your hands a device that will allow you to hurt someone else within 30 seconds, and you won't have to hear their voice or see their face, potentially for days...

What do you think happens...

In my experience what happens is - emotional blackmail, bullying, stalking, vilifying, personal attacks, lies, rumours, innuendo, slander, constant emotional upheaval, relationship breakdowns and relationship changes on a daily basis. I've seen "hate pages" created complete with vicious rumours created and photographs photoshopped about individual girls. Close relationships ebb and flow almost on a daily basis due to confusion about what has happened, and who said what.

It's what we had, but on steroids and on speed.

What do you think we should do about this?

Well obviously the horse has bolted. You can't shut that barn door now. So...what are we doing to prepare our adolescents for this? Bugger all if you ask me. As usual, technology is in the lead with social sciences following along asking "what the hell is happening?".

And it's not good saying "well my children won't have access to that rubbish, I'll just not let  them have it". Good luck with that. Excluding them from the access to those forms of communication doesn't exclude them from being the subject of it. And a techno-pariah to boot!

Perhaps I am over reacting. Perhaps it will all sort itself out. Each generation has it's challenges as they say. 

I can't help but wonder though...isn't that what they say about all technology? And aren't there serious questions yet to be answered about nuclear power and gene therapy and cloning etc etc etc. Have we reached a threshold after which the technology itself is exceeding our social ability to accept it successfully? Is it doing us any good to continually advance technology if the society structure we live in is crumbling down around us?

*Boys.