in New Scientist Magazine issue 21st April 2007, there’s an article called In Denial.

It cites that the average US school child leaves elementary school having witnessed more than 8000 murders and 100,000 other acts of violence on TV. If the child has access to computer games or films this figure will be far far higher.

It goes on to explain that studies have found an even higher correlation between viewing violence and committing it than the already accepted proven links between passive smoking and cancer risk, condom use and HIV minimisation, and three times the strength of findings that calcium increases bone strength.

It explores why in spite of all this the public refuses to take the link seriously simply because ALL kids exposed in this way will not become violent (and all people passively inhaling tobacco won’t get lung cancer either).

Anyway, may be worth having a look. It’s an awesome article. My husband reads the magazine and we explore some of the issues in it.

Donna *)

Given the sheer numbers of people online, I think that if we could point to the Internet as being a problem, we’d be seeing far more *new* problems. So far, the main change is that now the public is starting to acknowledge the incredible problems with bullying that many of us have pointed to all along. (What I’ve seen online, actually, has been an increase in empathy as people become friends with others they never would have gotten to know in-person. I’ve also seen a lot of cases of “online friends” going to incredible lengths to help one another or various pets out in the “real world”.)

Aside from weapons being way too easy to acquire, the big things standing out about the shooters in my country so far is that they were all subject to severe abuse from their peers, and they were all allowed to suffer (or even tormented) by the teachers that were supposed to protect them. They also all made clear references to the problem in their final communications. (There’s a great article on it here: How To Create A School Shooter)

Most kids that are bullied don’t snap like that, but most also have one thing or another helping them cope. In my case, I had a lot of little things that were enough for the two years I was being abused at school… Even with the short length and coping ability, though, I was still full enough with hatred towards almost everyone there that it seems reasonable to figure I would have snapped if things had gone on long enough, or if I didn’t have what I needed to cope.

If the first school killing spree was never publicized, I tend to think there would have never been any additional ones in the future in various places in the country, and none of the threats of this.