News Archive 2007
Headlines
- Youth Crime in NZ November 2007
- Text and mobile phone bullying at schools
Youth Crime in NZ
The country's top youth cop Superintendent Bill Harrison has some disturbing comments to make about the
effects of video games on the levels of youth crime in NZ.
[ More ... NZ Herald article, 28 November 2007 ]
[ More ... TV1 Breakfast interview, 28 November 2007 ]
We must commend him for his forthright views, since we are all concerned at the increasing amounts of media violence which our kids are exposed to , in both computer games, on Television and the Internet.
While our politicians and policy planners wring their hands about rising youth crime, they are short in coming up with solutions. Yet it is obvious that violent crime amongst the young has escalated at precisely the same time as our youth are being exposed to unprecedented levels of media violence.
Yet apart from Media Matters, few are prepared to take on the media directly.
So well done, Supt Harrison.
We sent our expression of support for Supt Harrison to all major dailies. The NZ Herald was the only one which printed it.
So well done to The Herald, too!
Text and mobile phone bullying at schools
We have recently had incidents of text and mobile phone bullying at schools around NZ which has alarmed Education Authorities and Parents and Teachers.
This type of media violence is an increasing trend.
A report by the Stout Research Centre at Victoria University states uncategorically after a survey of Wellington and Hutt Valley secondary schools that: 'Respondents' main concerns here were: Students accessing harmful material e.g. pornography; bullying via social networking sites, email; vulnerability to paedophiles; unsupervised internet use at home. Management of technology included blocks on web sites and placing computer screens so that teachers could easily see them.
It is a symptom of new technologies that their use spreads more rapidly than our ability to control them.
