Hitting the happy slapping back
July 24th, 2009 | Published in Mobile Communities, Mobile Devices, Social Impact
Happy slapping is nothing new. We’ve seen the documentaries, heard the stories and read the articles about it. What is surprising to me is how it keep spreading like a bad cancer among the young population around the world. Only a combined effort of equal intensity between citizens and organizations (governmental or not) will help find a solution for this criminal activity that is everything but happy.
According to the Times, it started in the London Borough of Lewisham around 2005, spreading to other countries faster than anyone could anticipate. Just like any other trend it was just a matter of time until we had the first cases here in Germany. According to the 2008 German study on mobile phones JIM, 28 percent of teenagers had at some point such videos in their mobile phones and shared them with others. “Lustiges Draufschlagen” or “Fröhliches Schlagen” is gradually becoming a real problem in playgrounds across German schools. In Bavaria, the police confiscated around 200 phones containing this sort of violent material from Teenagers ranging from 12 to 19 years old.
Handygewalt (Source: IZMF)
To counteract this stupid trend, the Informationszentrum Mobilfunk e.V. (IZMF) in cooperation with the Polizeilichen Kriminalprävention der Länder have created a short film called “Handygewalt” (translates something like mobile phone violence). Aimed directly to teenagers in school, the film portraits the consecuences for both the bully and the victim involved in the “happy slapping” (god I hate that name). The film is part of a group of a DVD set called “Abseits?!” touching on typical topics for teenagers. The plan as it now is to show the film to students in all German schools starting as soon as possible. Gemany hit the slappers back!
In case you are curious, there is an online version available. My son is eight and has a mobile phone, so he will be watching that film this weekend, no questions asked.
As a parent it is important to understand where this is going. While I am a sucker for technology, I came to realized that the social implications are yet to be further monitored and studied for a better understanding. The “Digital Natives” (everyone born during or after the 80′s) might had the luxury of being born in a time where technology grows exponentially, but just like everyone else, they can’t keep up with a such rapid pace. Happy Slapping is sadly a product partly created by the technology itself. Like media guru McLuhan predicted back in the day, the medium is the message.
Born Digital is one of the few books I’ve seen on the topic of understanding the impact of technology on the new generations. As a parent I’m glad a read the book. It made me ponder fundamental questions about my own life and the life I want for my son. While technology might be in part at fault, nothing beats good parenting. The game still the same, rules are just slightly different now.
