“Youth are almost desensitized to some of the violent language that’s out there. So, they’ll bully each other to say, ‘go kill yourself’ or, ‘I’m gonna kill myself’ in conversations that are in group conversations that are joking, and so to some extent, I think the social culture around using violent language is something that’s become more acceptable,” Dr. Wisniewski talks to News2 about how kids ‘desensitized’ to violent language online.
“It’s really important for parents to listen because they’ve already reached that threshold of saying, ‘Okay, something’s wrong,’…by the time they actually do say something, we need to listen,” she said.
Now that kids have returned to school, Wisniewski emphasized the significance of parents recognizing that what unfolds on social media generally amplifies the events taking place in a teenager’s life.
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