The games we play!

ASid is 16 as of yesterday. 

He shared a reflective moment with me and declared solemnly that he has said some stupid things in the last one year. I agreed by reminding him that he called babies jerks! To which, he replied that NOT just babies, but 7-8 year olds are jerks as well! 

Wow!!

It turns out he looked back on his comments on his Facebook account that led him to the conclusion that he said some stupid things in the last one year.

I remember counselling ASid in Grade 6 that he must be very careful about what he posts out there in cyberspace. Once words are out there, they circulate without gravity...forever! We cannot bury them however badly we wish we could.

The catch 22 here is that kids these days are doomed whether they do or whether they don't. If they are not active on social media, they are not happening. If they are, they should regret that they are happening. I think the word they use these days is “trending”; however, fame is fickle and fleeting! Kids are smart, but they can get high on the number of likes they get on a comment and keep going...and going. Adults have barely any control, so why blame the kids?!

To his credit, ASid does not use his full name and has a partial alias for all of his social media accounts which are about 5 and counting. He also did a little social experiment and changed his birthday to the day before on Facebook. When he did, he did let his friends know that. He wondered how many would remember and to his amusement, several got "baited"!

Gone are the days when people used their good sense to guide them. There is too much dependence on what's out there. If the Internet says it, it must be true. But it is not the Internet's fault. And I am glad ASid took responsibility for his self-confessed stupidity. Also glad he uses aliases; if not, in the real game of life, he could lose so much.

Even if ASid chooses to indulge himself in this game of aliases, I hope he has enough good sense to continue to mind the words that he posts out there. In an age where one can have hundreds of “friends” online, who can he really trust?!