SMS madness: police and bullies get in on the act

What's wrong with old-fashioned violence?

By Kieren McCarthy • Get more from this author

Posted in Data Networking, 16th January 2001 16:49 GMT

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The wave of text message madness continues with two more examples of it being abused. In a survey over bullying among children, a large number of those questioned said they had received "sick" text messages.

Over half of the teenagers quizzed (4344 in total) said they had been bullied, blackmailed, abused etc etc etc. Physical violence cropped up but threatening text messaging was the unexpected underdog. Arson was an interesting sideline too. While we'd love to get all Daily Mail about the survey and herald the end of civilisation as we know it, we won't, because ladies and gentlemen "it's all part of growing up".

We're creating a generation of cry-babies who see every inconvenience as an opportunity to get the authorities involved (or, if you're really lucky, sue them and make some money) whereas they should be confronting bullies as tradition dictates. Loads of these kids also spoke of "being unhappy" and "not feeling confident". We say: snap out of it.

Which neatly ties in with a properly violent teenager. A 17-year-old was nabbed by police and charged with attempted murder after he attacked fellow youngster David Young and left him on a life-support machine. Police couldn't find the boy but decided to send him text messages on his mobile along the lines of "you can run but you can't hide". He turned himself in.

This shows another scary trend - a mobile phone is more important to kids than a charge of attempted murder. The pay-as-you-go phones don't have all the flashy features after all, do they?

Madness, we tell you, madness. ®