Adults can be bullied too

and there is more of it now. 

There is an article in this morning's paper from the Chairman of something called the "anti-defamation commission". In it he is suggesting that access to social media is a major factor in bullying. This is the justification for denying those under the age of fourteen to access to all manner of social media. Take it away, or so the argument goes, and bullying will decrease. It will go back to manageable levels and do less harm. 

The jury is out on that one. I am wondering however if the problem goes back further than the advent of social media. 

Most people would look on radio as a wonderful thing. It brought entertainment into the homes of ordinary people. At first you needed to purchase a licence but technology overcame the possibility of controlling that.  "Trannies" were the big thing of my youth. It meant we could take a radio with us anywhere there was a strong enough signal and listen to all manner of things. There were households where the radio would be on all day and well into the night. The number of broadcasting stations increased. The variety increased. Commercial radio came into being with all the advertising jingles and more. 

And there was no longer any need to go outside your own home in order to be "entertained". You could simply sit and listen in comfort (or otherwise) "at home".  This did not happen immediately of course. It happened over time. Access to radio had to become widespread. The variety had to be there. "Talk back" radio was still a while away so there was no interaction with other people. Here most people still went to church on Sunday mornings and often went visiting on Sunday afternoons. There was sport and there were other clubs and interest groups. Young people had Scouts, Guides, church "youth groups" and the like. They went to the pictures on Saturday nights in groups. 

Television came in and there was a decline in these activities too. There was even more reason, or so people thought, to stay at home and be entertained. Social interactions were still there but not quite as common as the pre-television days. It happened without people even being aware of it. You might not be talking and interacting with the radio or the television set but you were being entertained. 

Bring in the widespread use of the internet and then social media and you suddenly had a way of "communicating" with each other without actually having to mix with them at all. There was no need to leave your own home to have "social contact" with other people. 

We have been led to believe that this is good. Some people have hundreds of friends on Facebook. They spend hours on Snapchat and more hours looking at video clips on Tik Tok. They "research" issues on Wikipedia and more. Social life is centred around the mobile phone, the big television screen and similar items. You can do the "self-serve" thing in the supermarket or keep your eyes on your phone screen so you do not need to chat to the checkout person. 

And people do just that. Some of them "work from home" and have almost no interaction with other people at all. Is it any wonder we have a rise in mental health issues? When we do see other people we no longer know how to act easily and naturally. We worry that we might have said the politically incorrect thing. Things are said "in fun" because we are nervous and anxious. It develops from there and the "teasing" turns into "bullying" instead.

There is more to it than that of course but the adults demanding an end to social media access for young people perhaps first need to look at what might just be a bigger problem - we no longer communicate with each other as easily as we once did.