Middle school was the worst years of my life. It was absolute torture, the bullying, the teachers' petty power trips, the pointless lull in actual education before high school. Technology was my refuge. I passed the hours just waiting to get access to a computer, and it wasn't until a few years later that I finally got a modem and found BBSes where I could participate in discussions with real people. It was fun, it saved me from I don't know what, and it set me on a path that led to this place 25 years later.
I would have been so much better off with a cell phone.
It's easy to forget that BBSes were not at all populated by a representative sample of all people. The communities you experienced were the norm there but are a vanishingly small part of the modern internet. If you were raised now you might never have found your way to one before your psychological development was co-opted and sent in a very different direction by today's social media offerings.
Exactly the same - but even through High School, I was bullied and abused. The point here isn't "don't give your kids phones", it's "pay attention to your kids, and don't let them act like assholes". But I guess it's just a lot easier to just not give your kid a phone and then pretend this shit isn't happening because your farts no longer smell bad.
I would have been so much better off with a cell phone.