Now wait just a darned minute

I’m working on some changes to this blog — specifically, to try to give it a more solid focus. What I like to do most of all is un-spin things. Sometimes thinking about a statement or a conclusion reveals some incredible lack of logic.

Today it comes courtesy of the Pew Internet and American Life Project, an organization I have a ton of respect for. This time, though, it’s spun some data to the point of meaninglessness.

(Ooh, the Windows Live Writer spell checker was OK with “meaninglessness.” Anyway.)

The latest Pew survey is about cyberbullying. As the AP story reports:

Nearly a third of online teens say they have been harassed on the Internet, with girls and participants of social-networking sites more likely to be targets, a study finds.

Yikes, you might think — this bullying thing is getting to be a problem. Maybe it isn’t the latest reporters-trying-to-make-up-news thing.

Alas, then you read further.

[T]he most common forms of cyberbullying are publicly disclosing someone else’s private e-mail or messages, sending threatening or aggressive messages and spreading rumors online.
Pew also counts as cyberbullying the posting of an embarrassing picture of someone else without permission.

Gods, with that broad a description it’s no wonder “Thirty-two percent of online teens said they have experienced at least one of those acts.”

Combine that broad description with a poorly defined word like “aggressive,” and you have a study that basically says “A third of kids have received a mean message from someone.”

That’s bullying? When you broaden a definition so far it becomes meaningless — witness the word “hero,” which now means “Someone who we want to show our appreciation to.”

So now, per Pew, any kid who sends another kid a message that’s anything other than friendly and polite is a “cyberbully.”

Y’know, sometimes kids are mean. It sucks, but it’s life. And sometimes kids send messages that aren’t all sweetness and light. that’s the real world.

If you prevent kids from ever seeing anything but rose petals, when they get out of school they’re going to be in for a rude awakening.