Why kids shot up schools

This is an interesting take on why kids are shooting up their schools.

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Columbine, Virginia tech and all those other shootings happened before smartphones was a thing.

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SURE - we need to ā€œteach kids to get off phones and look up.ā€ Addictions are more challenging than that. (I treat people with various addictions, and I can say that the brain gets wired in ways difficult to unwire when addictions are involved.) Phones/computers/tablets are the only way kids know how to communicate. Just watch a group of them at a restaurant together, all staring at their phones, TEXTING TO EACH OTHER!

And yes, itā€™s about attention. Ever since Columbine, kids have seen how they can become famous/infamous for a little while, and they deem this more worthwhile than the cost of going to jail or getting killed.

When I was growing up (oh here we go againā€¦) getting attention was about chewing gum in class, or running in the halls, or wearing a jean jacket, or smoking weed behind the garage (different weed than today - much less powerful), or having more horsepower than the next kid and laying more rubber.

Now, getting attention is about replacing your penis with something else, dying your hair multi, unnatural colors, shooting up a school, eating magic mushrooms, blah, blah, blah.

Seriously want to fix this and all of societyā€™s crap?

Simpleā€¦

*Get to church
*Turn our hearts to God
*Embrace a biblical lifestyle in which everyone, male, female, young, old, is treasured as the very Imago Dei, the image of God
*Put God first, then family, then self, then work, then everything else wayyyyy down in the noise.
*Eschew the soul-killing pursuit of wealth, and position, and stature, and power. Trade it all in for simplicity, humility, serving others.

I 100% guarantee, if we do these things, the problems we are seeing will go away. (Ah, but then HUMANS get involved!)

Simple. Not easy. But simple.

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Yes, itā€™s not JUST about smartphones. But smartphones have certainly led the acceleration of rampant sociopathy.

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I disagree.

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ā€œI disagree.ā€

And thatā€™s what makes our American experiment truly great - we can disagree, shake hands, go out to the range, drill some holes in targets, and go out for a pizza and a pitcher of beer afterwards.

Our disagreements do not need to divide us - although Brandon and pop-culture says otherwise.

Itā€™s all a lie.

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As always through history, ā€œgodā€ causes most of thisā€¦religion is surely not the solution.

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Nopeā€¦what we do with our twisted idea of God, turning God into a political tool to gain power, this is what causes most of this.

I had a professor in college who talked about all the ills Christianity had supposedly caused, and asked if anyone wanted to defend Christianity.

I didnā€™t raise my hand, but Iā€™ve thought about it several times in the years since: nobody was attacking Christianity, he was attacking horribly flawed implementations of the teachings of Jesus, hijacked by the powers of the world (namely the Roman Empire) and adulterated into something not at all resembling Jesusā€™ teachings.

God does not cause this crap. We cause it when we similarly hijack the gospel message and turn it into something ugly.

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Iā€™ll name 3 things that causes school shootings.

Psych Prescription Drugs
Mental health and homicidal suicidal ideation
Government.

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ā€œ Psych Prescription Drugs
Mental health and homicidal suicidal ideation
Government.ā€

I think youā€™re on the right track. As I work as a mental health counselor in a clinic, I see the results of what youā€™re describing.

In my observations, the psych meds, SSRIs and the like, are a workaround of the mental health and suicidal ideation, totally. SSRIs can help reduce the likelihood of someone attempting suicide. They can and do help.

But ultimately, thatā€™s kicking the can down the road. We talk about this in our clinic periodically, that we wish the need for our clinic totally went away, and counseling and meds were no longer needed. But as long as they ARE needed, weā€™re going to do our best to truly help people get more healthy.

And we also agree (full disclosure: itā€™s a Christian-oriented clinic) that the needs would go away, but for the rampant descent into secularism, the abandonment of objective truth, the rejection of Judeo -Christian values, and the powerful messages of a materialistic culture.

Iā€™m not sure about the Government part, but thatā€™s not my area of expertise.

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ā€œThe media needs to know this type of attention is why theyā€™re doing it.ā€ The media already knows.

THE MEDIA, HAVE AN AGENDA, AND WHAT THEY SAY GOES!

People blame the phones, people blamed the video games, people blamed the TV, and before that they blamed the radio, before that they blamed the newspaper.

Thereā€™s more ways to get attention now that there has ever been.

We got
YouTube
Twitter
Instagram
Kik
Discord
Reddit
Tik Tok
Whisper
Schmick
Truth Social
Facebook
Path
Myspace

You want to get attention you have all sorts of that stuff.

Kids today, they FaceTime each other.

In one of the groups Iā€™m in on discord we have a few kids on a discord group, we talk in Voice Chat every once in a while where we basic conversations.

We have more opportunities now to communicate, in different ways, to a diverse group of people, now, then weā€™ve ever had.

But somehow itā€™s ā€œattention, and deficit in communication skillsā€

Pewdie pie didnā€™t need the media to create his most following on YouTube.

We can finally think for ourselves and do our own research when it comes to certain events, and not just what the media tells us.

Not once have I seen that. They may be sharing videos among each otherā€™s, laughing and talking.
Iā€™m 25.

The iPhone came out when I was in elementary school. I grew up with this.

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Glad for you. I see it plenty.

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Well, none of the aforementioned media tools has been associated with the rapid pace of change in the last 10-15 years. The pace of change during the iPhone+social-media era has been breathtaking and unmatched at any time in recent history.

This has been going on more than the past 10-15 years though.

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It has, but not at the pace of the last 10-15 years. Weā€™ve seen more pronounced, impactful change in 5 years than in the last 50. It really is unusual.

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What changed in 2016 that we didnā€™t have in 2012?

I was a freshman in 2012. Sandy Hook happened. I graduated in 2016. Parkland happened 2017, Uvalde just happened in 2022. I know there was a small incident in Michigan earlier in the year.

But I really want to know whatā€™s the difference.

I grew up in this time period, I grew up with phones, I went to class with kids who had phones, Iā€™ve lived with roommates who had phones, where we send each other videos, memes and laugh at them, but still maintain vocal communication.

How old are you?

How out of touch are you with todays youth?

Why do you despise the cell phone?

Because you didnā€™t have access to such technology when you were a kid?

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Huh - I didnā€™t realize I despise the cell phone. Actually, I love my cell phone. So thereā€™s one down - I think you are making inappropriate assumptions. (Unless that was targeted at someone else.)

My age is irrelevant, and if you say it isnā€™t, then youā€™re just demonstrating ageism. I donā€™t believe your or my age changes the fundamental changes that have been happening in our culture. And if you insist that MY age matters, I will equally claim that YOURS does as well. Careful there! IMHO, the greatest impacting changes are:

  1. The death of truth and the rise of moral relativism. (Read: postmodernism, an inevitable outgrowth of Nietzscheā€˜s nihilism.)

  2. The increase of selfishness and individuality at the expense of a respectful, collectivistic yet still democratic, majority faith-based culture.

  3. The decline of reward-based systems and the increase of ā€œeverybody gets a trophyā€ mentality, which robs people of individual initiative.

Social media and electronic addiction/interconnectedness has merely allowed social change to occur at a much faster pace.

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Social media has nothing to do with social change.

Okee-dokee

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