The cyber bully and Unique Buying Power

In my last article on Unique Buying Power (UBP) we briefly had a look at the UBP and how it is far more powerful than the normal marketing parlance USP. But sadly though UBP seem now to be reigning supreme in the context of negativity in humans. 

The recent case of a 14-year-old old Australian girl committing suicide due to cyber bullying shows how much negativity is there. Hard on the heels of this comes the horrific gang rape of a 15-year-old girl in India who died due to her lungs and liver being ruptured by the rapists. Just two days ago in Haryana India, an 18-year-old schoolboy, livid at being reprimanded by the school principal for poor academic performance and picking fights with schoolmates, shot and killed the female principal. 

In an article in USA Today in May 2017, the gravity of the situation has been clearly shown and how the social media and modern technology is having a huge negative impact on the young people. Youth suicide rates are rising. School and the Internet may be to blame for this situation. Stressful environments and unfettered access to information may have boosted the number of teens and children hospitalised for suicidal thoughts or actions.

A new study found that children’s hospital admissions of patients five to 17 years old for such thoughts or actions more than doubled from 2008 to 2015. The study looked at 32 hospitals using data from the Paediatric Health Information System (PHIS).

When patients are hospitalised, doctors consider family history, worldview, and social environments. School systems are becoming “more and more challenging,” said Dr. Dan Nelson of the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Centre. Nelson, medical director of the center’s child psychiatry unit, noted concerns about weapons and bullying.

Nelson, the doctor at Cincinnati Children’s, said he’s amazed at how much information youth has access to — some of which can be traumatising. In addition to things like cyberbullying, he said, kids can now easily access information about how to hurt themselves. 

“The media that children are exposed to gets more and more sophisticated and more and more graphic and so kids get exposed to more and more things,” he said. (https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation)

For the authorities to find and implement a plan of action purely from a legal perspective is not going to be that easy. The fact of the matter is that in all cases, the people who molested the young teen in India, the people who indulged in cyber bullying of the Australian girl had extreme negative illustrations of name-form in their consciousness. On the other hand, the young teenage Australian girl who committed suicide due to cyber bullying did not have the inner strength in her illustrations to jettison the negatives that were bombarding her through the social media. 

Cyberbullying rampant on the internet

Sam Laird has published an article on Mashable Lifestyle that details with vivid statistics just how rampant and pervasive the problem of cyberbullying has become. Consider these stats presented in the article:

• 42% of teenagers with tech access report being cyberbullied over the past year
• Of the 69% of teens that own their own computer or smart phone, 80% are active on social media
• The average teen sends 60 texts per day – reducing face-to-face communication skills
• Teen texting rate is double the adult texting rate
• Girls 14-17 text more – 100 per day
• 7.5 million Facebook users are under 13 years old
• 81% of teens say bullying online is easier to get away with
• 3 million kids per month are absent from school due to bullying
• 20% of kids who are cyberbullied think about suicide, and one in 10 attempt it.
• 4,500 kids commit suicide each year
• Suicide is the No. 3 killer of teens in the US. (Car accidents #1, Homicide #2)

It is clear that many kids cannot cope with the social and emotional demands of social media. The technology is not the problem as much as the immaturity of the user. Cognitive research shows that the human brain does not attain full cognitive and reasoning capabilities until the age of 21-24. Couple this with increasing distance from parents and family, the child lacks the mental maturity and support network needed to resist the onslaught of bullying and harassment that can come with access to social media.

The connection between kids starts at school. The peer network at school leads to wider and wider reach as kids openly ‘friend and follow’ each other, presumably out of a desire to be popular, connected and in-the-know. As such, cyberbullying online quickly can become a school issue as students quietly bear the burden of rumours and rubbish that is cast upon them by sometimes known and unknown peers.

And unfortunately, sometimes it is adults such as teachers and other parents that are cyberbullying kids. Read Megan’s story (https://www.meganmeierfoundation.org/megan-taylor-meier.html) to learn how one such parent attack ultimately led to the suicide of a high school girl.

Unfortunately, given the trends of younger and younger children gaining access to social media and mobile devices, the scourge of cyberbullying will likely get much worse before it ever gets better. OnlineMom.com now reports that the average age for obtaining a mobile phone is 11.6 years old. The quest for solutions to cyberbullying ranges from school intervention strategies to parent intervention strategies to legal consequences and it is clear that there is no quick-fix to this problem. (http://www.cyberbullyhotline.com)

Authorities in Sri Lanka must realise before it is too late that there are more mobile phones and hand held devices than our total population. According to Colombo Digital Marketers website (http://www.digitalmarketer.lk/internet-usage-statistics-in-sri-lanka.html) there are over five million internet users, more than 23 million mobile connections and over 3.5 million Facebook users. 

On one hand Sri Lanka is becoming an ICT hub which can be used for great many good things such as,

• Spreading the Dhamma as expounded by the Enlightened One, to the community and broadcasting in real time meditation both mindfulness meditation and Vipassana meditation by Bhikku/s who is/are already guiding our youth and all others in meditation at a retreat/s. 
• For the year 2015/16, of the 155,550 students who got qualified, only 29,055 students or just 18.68% got admission to a university. Indeed, for the period 2012/13 to 2015/16, of the 593,708 who qualified only 104,096 students were admitted, just 17.53%. ICT can be the most powerful instrument that can ensure even others also find opportunity for higher learning without having to lean towards the private sector institutions. (http://www.ugc.ac.lk/).
• As per available data, around $ 600 million per year is spent on foreign education by our children, and much of this foreign exchange outflow can be reduced with e-education through ICT. 
• Can create critical mass of people who can work on BPO and BPA and find employment while generating foreign exchange inward streams.

There is the other, the negative side, where increasing mobile usage and social media is causing much mental stress and is bound to gather momentum. The constant pressure exerted by parents and others pushing children to tuition streams at a very early age from the 5th Grade Scholarship hurdle onwards is causing loss of free time and thus create high mental stress.

Often children have to spend over 12 hours a day away from home and the only interaction they may have would be the mobile phone. As a result, burdened by these factors children become easy prey for the drug peddlers. 

Of the total number of students who qualified for university admission during this period, 64.85% are female students. The majority of male students give up education at an early age and most are prone to try and make a living with three-wheel taxi business. It is these youths who get exposed to the bad habits and go on the wrong path. 

However, there is a bright side now slowly emerging from the dark clouds – the initiatives taken by the Buddha Sasana Ministry to work on a mix of programs at village level as well as at national levels. They have identified villages and areas that are prone to create the negativities in youth and have already embarked on many projects in meditation, understanding people’s psychographics and secure meaningful employment and spread the word of Dhamma to young and all. Thousands of children are now encouraged to do meditation in day retreats and many more such programs will emerge during the course of this year 2018. 

This Ministry needs the support of the Education Ministry and all other ministries to bring these initiatives to fruition early. “One is one’s own refuge and no other one can be the refuge. With oneself tamed, one can attain refuge so difficult to attain (Dhammapada 12.160).” Meditation empowers one to become one’s own refuge and no amount of external bullying even through cyber links can impact a person.

It is also time that the teaching fraternity thought which is better: A nation of happy people or a nation that is chasing after the illusion of money in the false understanding that money is happiness?

Once the Buddha was walking along a gravel path with Bhikku Ananda and told Bhikku Ananda, “serpent Ananda, serpent”. Looking around, Bhikku Ananda could not see any serpent and told Buddha that he could not see a serpent. Then, pointing with his right hand Buddha showed a heap of gold coins and said that if a serpent was to bite a human, there are medicines and treatment to get rid of the poison from the body, but if this serpent named money were to bite a human there were no treatments at all.  

The decision of the President to cancel the Gazette notification allowing liquor shops to open till 10 p.m. is most commendable. If we call this country the Land of Buddha, then there is no place for such things as liquor. Liquor has been used by successive governments to improve the taxation income. On the contrary the Government can enhance its income in far better ways such as with wellness tourism. 

One of the reasons for the low growth in tourism last year of just 2.5% over 2016 probably is the lack of new product initiatives. Sri Lanka has all the strengths to be the future centre for wellness tourism where the important components are meditation, discussion of Dhamma, Ayurveda, yoga, vegetarian cuisine and the sights and sounds of over 2,300 years of historical value. Indeed, in 2018 this market segment will have the highest growth of over 10% globally and making it $ 500 billion market.

Also anybody with insight can delve into Dhamma as expounded by the Buddha, and will realise that Anuradhapura is the oldest living city in this planet and is living in the present all the time. New cities with super structures keep sprouting all over the world but begin to age all the time. Anuradhapura is in the present and not in the past or future because of the existence of sublime Dhamma from the day Arahath Mahinda came to our land. One can easily understand this if able to see the inner meaning of stanza venerating Dhamma. 

“Svakkhato Bhagavata Dhammo, Sanditthiko, Akaliko, Ahipassiko, Opanayiko, Paccattam Veditabbo Vinnuhi ti.”

• Svakkhato – well-expounded, excellent in the beginning, middle and the end and not Durakkhato or badly expounded.
• Sanditthiko – To be realised here and now by each and every walking the path and not Samparaika, to be realised later in another life or simply procrastinate.
• Akaliko – Is timeless and not say it is in the past or future but always in the present moment. Results can be achieved in this moment.
• Ahipassiko – Invited to come and see and practice and achieve the sublime fruit.
• Opanayiko – One can gradually, step by step reach the ultimate goal. 
• Paccattam Veditabbo Vinnuhi ti – To be realised by the wise through self.
• Furthermore, Sri Lanka Tourism must take a relook at the tagline ‘Wonder of Asia’ as many other Asian nations have similar tag lines:
• Taiwan – The Heart of Asia
• Malaysia – Truly Asia
• Cambodia – Kingdom of Wonder
• Vietnam – Timeless Charm
• Japan – Endless Discovery

With inner wellness as the focal centre of Sri Lanka, I would like to suggest the following alternatives for our tag line:

• The Wellness Paradise
• Your Wellness Wonderland
• Your Wellness is Our Happiness

Anuradhapura since the day of Arahath Mahinda is living in the present as Arahath Bhikkus and Bhikkunis who are and were stream-enterers, once-returners or non-returners, lay Bhikkus and Bhikkunis and the lay disciples were and are practicing the sublime living Dhamma through meditation and through expounding of Dhamma. Anyone who is on the meditative path can easily discern this fact when entering the Pooja Nagar. Anuradhapura is thus not just a Pooja Nagar or a Sacred City but a Living City.

Our tourism authorities should look into this fact right away and make all the plans to bring solace, peace and happiness to not just our citizens but the global citizens as well. For a start all hotels and accommodation providing homestay providers be guided to allocate at least one hour a day for meditation where clusters of accommodation providers can arrange for meditation teachers to guide the tourists both local and foreign. Meditation will make our country and the world a far better place.

(The writer can be reached via [email protected] and [email protected].)