BHS students attended a presentation by the Organization for Social Media Safety September 26 and 27 hosted at Main Street Landing Film House. Ed Peisner, founder of the organization, spoke about the potential dangers associated with social media like cyberbullying, addiction, suicide, depression, disinformation and human trafficking. 

Sophie Burdick ‘23 changed all of her social media accounts to private after the presentation. Burdick was impacted by Peisner’s story about how his son was intentionally knocked unconscious and suffered brain damage so a stranger could post a video of it on social media. 

“It was really hard to hear that while this kid was unconscious on the floor, other kids were just standing over him taking pictures and not doing anything,” Burdick said. “It was really awesome for that dude to come out and tell everybody everywhere about that story.”

The event was part of the BHS’ focus on hazing, harassment and bullying. Earlier in the week, students and teachers in advisory discussed the definitions of hazing, harassment and bullying and considered the roles they play during these incidents. 

Ryan Nest, a member of BHS’ mental health team, says social media often plays a role in the issues students bring such as social media addiction, a lack of self-worth and dealing with negative comments from anonymous users.

“I hope as a school community and as a culture we can kind of start to recognize that…social media is not the healthiest thing for us,” Nest said. “We don’t need to live our lives through devices, we can have more person-to-person interactions, which hopefully, will help people empathize and relate more to each other and will lessen the likelihood that people will be mean to each other.”