Our Children Posting Violence

Has the advent of the camera phone and the ability to post its contents to social media with a push of a button created a society that only cares about getting an image online verses helping those in need? Its nice, to post random acts of kindness or cute pet images that are uplifting and make us feel good, but is filming someone being injured when you can help cool? Today, I watched a horrifying video recorded on a cell phone of a teenaged girl being beaten by several other teenaged girls at a McDonalds in Brooklyn, NY. The video really bothered me. I was saddened at the fact that no one (and by no one I am mean no adult) stopped the fight. I was saddened that no one in the crowd called the police… I understand peer pressure/ bullying and the fear of retaliation, but no one thought about leaving to call the police... None of the victims friends helped her, asked McDonalds management to help or called the police. Is this the world we live in now?

Where are we going wrong with our children and what do we need to do to bring up a generation that cares about others more than their 5-minutes of fame?

It use to be that our children would act out to get attention from their parents, but now they are using social media to act out in front of the world and make themselves famous. How will the actions of these children translate in the workplace when they are adults?

These are our future employees, executives and CEO’s and although most of them will shed their childish behavior as they cross over into adulthood and look to build their financial future/ a legacy, we still have to ask… How will their hunger for fame effect their work ethic? Are we raising our children to enjoy their childhood, but also be socially responsible? How can we harness this need for the spotlight and make them exceptional employees, executives and CEO's?

I do not know the answer to all of these questions, but I do know as social media continues to evolve we need to teach our children to be socially cautious, value life over fame and that their actions today may hurt them tomorrow.

I would love to hear your thoughts and/or solutions on our leaders of tomorrow.

Be Blessed

A. Mayartis J.