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The Red Cross in Tirunelveli has given a petition to the District authorities to take a serious note of the teenage bike riders, most of whom do not hold proper license, do not know the road safety rules, yet own a ‘dangerously fast’ ambition to create dare devil road show. Today morning the result of the petition was visible in every nook and corner of the city. The police and the Highway petrol were blocking teenagers who were rushing to their schools on their bikes. A good move indeed. These children needed a serious warning from the police, let not be from their own parents or guardians. But the story does not end here. Just a couple of days back a young life ended sadly due to such freak accident. The accident was so fatal that it left deep impact on every body, including the Red Cross who very wisely felt this IS the time to put a STOP for these kids. One mother of another teenager gave me the most shocking news…. Who motivated these kids to be dare devil? Not the movie stars apparently, neither the video games on car races; it was the ‘wish to be a hero through social networking sites ’mindset of these kids which was the main factor that pushed them to their death.
Most of these school going teenagers in India are becoming addicted to social networking sites. I have myself checked some of the student’s profiles and was quite numb to see their photo albums. No, it was not sexting; it was neither any other person’s (especially girls) morphed pictures, but some of the pictures did show heroic postures on the two wheelers. These pictures give the kids a great ego boosting, especially when others comment on these pictures. When we were high school/college students , many of our classmates, senior school mates used to get ‘good lessons’ from their guardians, from our teachers as well as the local elders when they tried to impress others, especially we girls by doing (un)heroic activities on their bi-cycles or on the foot boards of local buses. Using of motor bikes at the age of 16/17 was still a dream for many. Many such ‘heroes’ were thrashed by elders by words like “eta ki circus hochche”?( do you think this is a circus ?). Soon they were reduced to the position of ‘jokers’. But they failed to create such huge impact on their friends and juniors as today’s social networking teens are creating. Indeed, this generation is more matured and smart than our generation. But it pains me to think how this generation is misusing the special networking sites to spread the message of deadly happiness.
Wishing all my readers a happy and safe September.
Please Note: Do not violate copyright of this blog. If you would like to use informations provided in this blog for your own assignment/writeup/project/blog/article, please cite it as “Halder D. (2011), “All for social networking sites”, 31st August,2011, published in http://cybervictims.blogspot.com/
