I am very happy to have Patty Blount on the blog today with a guest post about the consequences of technology in the world of today’s teen. Patty is the author of Send, a compelling and emotional story about a bully and his life after punishment.
Here is a little bit about Send:
Send
Author: Patty Blount
Genre: Young Adult
Format: ebook
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Release Date: 8-1-12
To keep his secrets, all he has to do is listen to the voice in his head and just walk away…
On his first day at his new high school, Dan stops a bully from beating up a kid half his size. He didn’t want to get involved. All he wants out of his senior year is to fly under the radar. But Dan knows what it’s like to be terrorized by a bully-he used to be one. Now the whole school thinks he’s some kind of hero, except Julie Murphy, the prettiest girl on campus. She looks at him like she knows he has a secret. Like she knows his name isn’t really Daniel. – Goodreads
You can read my review here.
The Consequences of Technology
In 2004, my son had a growth spurt. He hit five foot nine, started shaving, endured some vicious acne and all the other curses of puberty and so, became the favorite target of a group of little boys who thought it was great fun to tear down the giant. This torment had gone on for months before I ever learned about it.
I didn’t learn about it until my son told me he no longer wanted to live.
He was in sixth grade. Today, he’s in college and doing well, but I will tell you he bears deep scars from his ordeal.
Let’s skip to 2009: a new executive at my day job directed us to start incorporating social media into our work. I knew nothing about networks like Facebook and Twitter and had a lot of homework to do before I could figure out how to meet his directive. The more work I did, the more grateful I became that none of these networks were around back in 2004.
If they had been, I’m sure I would have lost my son.
Social networks are great tools. They give a voice to anyone with an internet connection, they allow us to remain connected to folks we’d otherwise have lost touch with, and they expose us to news before the networks can report it. Here’s the irony: the things that make social networks so great are also the very things that make them so dangerous. The problem with everyone having a voice is that we can’t readily determine which voices are qualified to support the opinions being stated and which are just hot air. Remaining connected can easily become stalking. And, ‘news’ may be nothing more than rumor. (Bon Jovi did not die in December of 2011.)
I have two more bullet points for the Danger list: First, many of us are more likely to say something snarky online than directly to someone’s face. Psychologist John Suler calls this the Online Disinhibition Effect and what’s really scary is most of us aren’t even aware we’re caught up in it. According to Suler, the internet makes us all anonymous and invisible and because there’s no online authority, exaggerates our own sense of self.
In other words – it’s a power trip and power is pretty much the bully’s objective, isn’t it?
Second, there is the immediacy of it and I want to stress that this is NOT a trap limited only to teens. Adults are just as likely to lose their tempers and take inappropriate action based on anger as teens. This is actually why I chose SEND as the title of my book – because the Send key is RIGHT THERE at the top of the screen, just itching to be clicked before you’ve carefully crafted the message you want to express.
I think it’s important for all of us to remember two things: first, technology is not a toy and second, children are not short adults, which means that is exactly how they’ll treat technology. Social sites, smart phones and the internet have the potential for positive and negative results. I don’t know how children can distinguish the good from the bad without guidance from adults.
How old were your children when you bought them a cell phone? Are they on Facebook or Twitter? Do you know who they’re talking to? Better question – do you know who’s talking to them?
Patty spends her days writing facts and her nights writing contemporary romantic fiction. A coworker once said if Patty were a super-villain, she’d be called The Quibbler. Her costume would be covered in exclamation points. Fueled by a serious chocolate obsession, a love of bad science-fiction movies, and a weird attraction to exclamation points, Patty looks for ways to mix business with pleasure, mining her day job for ideas to use in her fiction.
Find Patty Blount online:
Website
Twitter
Facebook
End Bullying resources
Thanks, Patty! I think these are issues worth thinking about whether you are the parent of a teen or an adult who uses social media. Thanks to the wonderful people st Sourcebooks, I am giving away one finished copy of this fantastic book.
You must be 13+ to enter. This giveaway is open to residents of the US and Canada only.
Good luck!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Interesting guest post! Thanks for the giveaway.
Thanks for the giveaway! She’ll be on my blog tomorrow. It’s a great post about pop culture fads that should stay or go. :o) Thanks!
Interesting post. I have a snarky personality sometimes but I realized once I started talking on line more that the context doesn’t always come through and you end up saying things that are hurtful even though it would have been considered funny in person.
This book sounds really great!
Can’t wait to read this book. Thanks for the giveaway! 🙂
I’ve been seeing this book on other blogs and I want to read it! Sounds awesome; thanks for offering a giveaway!
Hmm, interesting!
That’s so try about internet bullying – and like you said adults can be awful as well.
Words hurt too.
Thank you:)
Thanks for the chance to win!
Thanks for the giveaway!
Thanks for the giveaway! Looks like a good book!
As a mom of a kid in HS this sounds like a book for me to read! Thanks so much!
Thanks so much for letting me guest post! And thanks to all your readers for their comments. I hope you like SEND and will visit Dan, Kenny, Julie, and me over at our Facebook page, SEND (the novel)!
Sounds like a great book
I think this is such an important topic. I’m kind of glad that social media wasn’t really a big thing when I was in middle and high school. People that age can be so absolutely cruel to each other 🙁
I think this would be a GREAT read 🙂
Whispering Misty…
So sorry you can pass up the workshop!…