We’re three weeks into our new school year. I’m finally starting to get into a groove and routine and it is turning out great so far.
A new school year always has its excitement, enthusiasm, fears, and concerns. This year is no exception. As teachers across the country are dealing with masks/no masks, Covid students, and absent students to contact. Now we’re dealing with a ludicrous TikTok challenge of students destroying school property, stealing teachers’ things, and humiliating teachers and taking videos of it. All I can say is, “Why?”
Fortunately, for our school, we are aware that this is happening. There is a plan in place for any of our students who feel the need to add their videos to the challenge. Justice will be firm and swift. But for other schools in our country, unfortunately, the damage has already been done.
I am not a user of TikTok. I have no desire to be a follower of this social media. For one, I hate photos of myself or any videos that have me in them as well.
Social Media is a Drug
Growing up as a teenager in the ’80s our form of social media was hanging out with our friends and driving the loop on Main Street with the windows down and the music blasting. We didn’t have every moment of our lives broadcasted unless it was the society section of the local newspaper.
Facebook, when it was born, was meant to let college students know who the hot and available girls were on campus. Then it morphed into a way to stay in touch with friends and loved ones by stealing the idea from MySpace. After Facebook destroyed MySpace, other social networking platforms came onto the scene. Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok, and the like all had “good intentions” when starting on the Internet.
Social media is a drug and the people in charge are the dealers. They will say whatever they need to say to get you to buy-in. They have infiltrated into every facet of our lives. Social media sites have all of your information at their disposal to craftily piece together what you need and should see. And we the people have been sucked into their lair addicted to seeing the latest news in our feeds.
We now have a problem. Social media has become a scary place for many people, mostly our sons, daughters, and our students. The powers that be have control of our kids’ lives and even ours as adults. They control what our children see and who can post content on their platforms. The content our children follow on social media changes who they are. They want to be just like the viral people on these platforms so they participate in these challenges to be noticed. They change their identities to be just like these influencers thinking their lives are not as good as what they see online.
These giants have a huge issue on their hands. Our children are committing crimes against their schools and teachers for “likes”. They have an opportunity to step up as companies to help our students learn what is right and wrong on their platforms. If there is a crime being committed, these people need to be banned from their sites. These students should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. This type of behavior and posts should NOT be on any social media site. Teachers and administrators across the country have enough to deal with. TikTok…I’m watching to see if you are going to do the right thing for our children.