
Teen Creates “Sit with Us” App for Bullied Kids - michaelsbradley
http://www.npr.org/2016/09/09/493319114/teen-creates-sit-with-us-app-for-bullied-kids
======
daxorid
Unpopular opinion with healthy dose of anecdata incoming.

I was bullied mercilessly from 3rd grade through 7th grade. Wedgies, keepaway,
taunts, set-ups, beatings anywhere from hit and runs to ground and pounds.

At some point in the 7th grade during an ordinary, routine beating, something
snapped within me and I turned around and landed on the order of 40 blows to
the kid's face.

I was _never_ bullied again.

I would advocate immediate, publicly visible, and decisive violence as a
solution to bullies.

~~~
mikeash
What I don't understand is why there's such a double standard between children
and adults when it comes to this sort of behavior.

If someone attacks me as an adult, I have every right to defend myself. The
police will be called, and if it's possible to identify the perpetrator and
prove beyond a reasonable doubt that they attacked me, they will go to jail.
If the police aren't able to find the attacker or prove that they did it, then
I'm allowed to take countermeasures such as avoiding the area, carrying some
sort of defensive measures (pepper spray, or even just a gun), or having
someone escort me.

Do the same thing to a child, and there's often minimal punishment, the victim
and perpetrator are not separated from each other in the long term, and the
victim is strongly encouraged not to fight back.

Can you imagine telling a victim of a mugging (or worse) to "just ignore them"
the next time it happens?

We create these Lord of the Flies type situations for children, then basically
tell them that problems shouldn't be happening, if they are then we won't
help, but the children shouldn't do anything about them either. And then we
are shocked, shocked, when children suddenly go all psycho on their
tormentors.

If a business had a constant known problem with physical violence among its
employees and patrons, they'd be forced to reform or shut down, and people
would go to prison. Schools should be the same. It's the responsibility of the
people in charge to keep the students safe, both from outside threats and from
each other. If they can't do that, then they need to be replaced by people who
can.

Until and unless that ever happens, then students' best option will be to
retaliate.

~~~
Joeboy
We have that double standard because physical assaults in schools are normal,
and physical assaults in workplaces are unusual. Same kind of reason tobacco
is legal and MDMA isn't.

~~~
maxerickson
The GP is partly commenting on the absurdity of physical assaults being normal
in schools. The question is _why is that?_

~~~
VLM
Kids are dumb.

Normal masculine teasing is a two player game and if the players aren't
experienced enough to play, dumb stuff gets out of hand. Happens in adult
settings too where practical joke wars get out of hand, for example. So adult-
ish male jokes around with adult-ish male, "yer mom" jokes are exchanged, its
all cool.

Inexperienced jock kid calls inexperienced nerd kid a nerd, jock kid stands
there waiting "he's supposed to "yer mom" me back" meanwhile nerd kid panics
and starts looking for a safe space. And sometimes it escalates.

And that's why adult teachers, especially male teachers, used to ignore
bullying. So as a grown adult I'm supposed to tell the nerd kid how to "yer
mom" the jock kid? Can't you kids figure this stuff out on your own like 99%
of the population? Clearly not...

~~~
maxerickson
I dunno, when I turned around and shoved my bully (he was a loser-stoner, not
a jock) into the wall after he was shoving me while I was taking a piss, he
didn't say "Oh hey cool, it's a two player game, I like this guy", he punched
me in the head 5 times.

But sure, it's just kids being dumb and silly.

------
eggy
Maybe I am the old man in the room, but even though it sounds neat, and the
intentions are good, I think the net result is pushing more towards not
dealing with the world and now instead of slipping notes folded in your hand
with micro-writing to someone, you text them or hook up on an app. The note
could get intercepted and abused in the past, and the same for this app, just
as Facebook can be used to prey upon people, so can this app be used. Tech is
not always the answer, although tech is liberating and awesome in general.

Part of growing up is learning to take chances, and overcome fears, extreme
cases not included. Children learn to test boundaries, and explore. Some kids,
and their parents are just bad or ignorant, and it will always exist in some
manner. The goal post moves to the next unacceptable thing to the point where
people will only be able to live in urban areas, and wouldn't last a minute
outside of their cell coverage zone, or in nature.

It will never go away even with all of the tech and laws. You can't legislate
intelligence, and you cannot tech it to death. I for one think things have
gotten better, but the bad is reported more, and gives the impression that it
is somehow worse in people's minds.

I look at my childhood, and my children's and they are orders of magnitude in
difference to the violence and things that went on in my neighborhood. I do,
though see the relative discomforts. Meaning something that would not have
personally been hurtful to me then, or at least I would have been able to put
aside, and move on, would be more of an issue to my children's peers. We have
progressed, and are whittling away at the extremes, but then the relative
borders of unacceptable move closer perhaps enough to make the emotional
magnitude equivalent.

~~~
tetrep
> We have progressed, and are whittling away at the extremes, but then the
> relative borders of unacceptable move closer perhaps enough to make the
> emotional magnitude equivalent.

I think this is a general trend with socializing and the internet. Before
~instantaneous communication in global forums, you had to "make do" or
compromise with how you socialized among your peers, since you were limited to
the immediate geographic area (less as you grow older and potentially get
access to cars/more autonomy). But now, you can literally just take your
socializing elsewhere, it's a "buyers" market for socializing where, if you
don't like your current social network, you can pretty easily drop it and go
somewhere more comfortable for you.

This is great from a curated safety standpoint but it breeds dependence on
these social escapes. I think parallels nicely with "fight or flight" where
you can either try to fight for your social standing in your current
environment, or flee to a more welcoming one. If you always choose flee,
you'll always be satisfied by some other group socially (assuming you can find
one, which should be pretty easy on the internet) but you'll never learn how
to handle social conflict in a healthy manner, and thus your boundaries of
acceptability shrink more and more as you mature and come to better understand
what you want (or at least what you dislike).

I think it's similar to having too hygienic an environment when growing up,
your body doesn't adapt to various allergens and you end up less healthy the
curation. Or the cliche spoiled child, who grows up to become extremely
difficult to work on a team/interact with in general because they're not
learned in compromise and are incapable of comprehending "not getting their
way."

Technology in general allows us to better enact our will, which I think is
also slowly spoiling those who fully take advantage of it. Just like it's
healthy to keep physically and mentally challenging yourself, I think
emotionally challenging yourself is also healthy, and while you don't need to
seek out difficult social interactions, I think it's healthy to try to solve
the problems without simply avoiding them.

edit: for age context, i'm in my mid-twenties

~~~
eggy
Very good observations, proving once again, I can learn by listening to other
view points. You nailed it with 'it's a "buyers" market for socializing', and
you keep flocking to less threatening or less comfortable social groups. I
think this is mostly good, but as we have both put forth, can lead to not
dealing with reality at times. Again, to be able to get away from the extremes
is beneficial, but to never confront others or our own personal fears might
not allow us to grow more. We grow through obstacles, and that includes
awkward, and at times scary, social ones too, not just the technical or
intellectual ones.

I am 52; you are very astute for your age!

------
downandout
This app has wonderful intentions, but I fear that it won't work in real life.
By merely downloading the app, kids will be labeling themselves as bullied.
This opens up a variety of new avenues for bullies to ply their trade - from
new insults ("You're such a loser you had to install that Sit With Us app")
all the way up to sociopaths that install the app and extend a fake invitation
to sit with them for the express purpose of further victimizing their targets.

Bullies will weaponize any means of escape that their victims attempt to
utilize. Perhaps a more effective app would be one that lets parents register
to field complaints about their kids' behavior from anyone.

~~~
tinus_hn
The app is both for children who are bullied and those that want to help, so
that kind of spying wouldn't work. Plenty of children do want to help but
don't know how and this idea can help. Surely a bullied child won't be invited
to the popular kids clique but having some normal people to talk to is a great
start.

~~~
downandout
_> Surely a bullied child won't be invited to the popular kids clique_

My fear is that they indeed will be invited as a joke, only to meet with in-
person rejection. Along the lines of "HAHAHA you thought that was a real
invitation?".

~~~
anotheryou
I also wondered how this could work. Maybe et people vote against abusers and
have some local teachers with veto power (usually they know who is bully and
who gets bullied I think).

Especially positive votes could be less likely to be faked, it would require
more work to fake reputation than to abuse the abuse-button.

edit: A much easier solution: Educate the bullied on how the system could be
used against them and that they simply have to glance over if it's the bullies
sitting at the table or normal kids. I think most bullies are just joining in,
but wouldn't initiate setting someone up. The worst however will initiate such
a thing, but those are probably already known to you as a bullied.

------
lumberjack
Prediction: All kids start using this app to formalise their social circles
the end result being that the outcasts remain outcasts but now they know
exactly how rejected they are by the rest of the student body.

~~~
makmanalp
Alternate and much more depressing prediction: "Normal" kids won't want to use
an app for bullied (i.e. "weird") kids in general. Some bullied / non-
conformist / nerdy / queer / alt / etc kids will try to use it and probably
enjoy it. Then some bully will discover that they can post an open lunch table
to find out who's using the app and then humiliate them, perpetuating the
cycle.

edit: ... but I still love the idea.

------
blondiedondie
This is an amazing effort and a great app. I'm glad it's really working out.

However... teens being teens and bullies being bullies... isn't there a risk
they might use the app just to find and target the kids who used to be lonely?
I mean, its a pretty silly question I guess.. but it's something that crossed
my mind when I read the article.

~~~
Raphmedia
It's not hard to spot the lonely kids in the cafeteria and bully them.

It's harder to find the lonely kids that might be friends with you. The
bullies don't need the app but the lonely kids do!

~~~
tinix
Maybe the bullies are truly the lonely ones, and use bullying as an outlet to
hide that. Food for thought...

------
niftich
This isn't for the 'being pushed around' kind of physical bullying, it's
essentially for social matchmaking. I'd argue that excluding a certain person
from one's social circle isn't (and shouldn't be counted as) bullying -- I'm
not sure whether it is or isn't -- but social exclusion from multiple
disparate groups will manifest as being ostracized, and that's the problem
this is trying to solve.

I applaud the good intentions but social networks (in the traditional
sociology sense) in schools will transcend real-life/online boundaries and
service boundaries, so school-age people's friends on Snapchat are largely the
same as their friends in the classroom and lunchroom, and vice versa.

The only potential I see here is the a discreet 'lowkey' way of broadcasting
good intentions that a particular person is friendly, but this relies on that
person's intentions being authentic; which is an unsolved problem.

~~~
alexandre_m
Like you said, it's for matchmaking on the spot during lunch hours.

I don't see the problem, I applaud the initiative.

It solves a simple issue: where do I sit when I know no one.

For those who are ambassadors, you can make new friends.

------
samfisher83
Maybe someone needs to make an app for adults too. Especially as you get older
it is harder to make new friends.

~~~
aaron695
Dime a dozen.

Google "Social Dining Apps"

Will you use it? I'd bet no. I know I thought it a good idea until I found
one, and never used it.

It was specifically for finding people near you to eat lunch that day with.
(Can't remember this exact one)

It's good in your head, socially awkward in practice.

Unlike dating apps, or large group apps like meetup.

See "We’re F*cked, It’s Over. Or Is It?" [https://medium.com/the-mission/were-
f-cked-it-s-over-or-is-i...](https://medium.com/the-mission/were-f-cked-it-s-
over-or-is-it-5abe1432471d#.fyh6oic3f)

~~~
eatbitseveryday
> It's good in your head, socially awkward in practice.

I find it interesting (honest) that children can just hang out, initially as
strangers, without it being awkward. As adults, this is much harder. Why? Do
we think too much as adults, such that it causes these situations to become
awkward?

~~~
hashmp
Totally agree with this, but I can understand why they are able to do it.

Kids don't judge. As a kid, you can meet another kid and get straight in there
asking the important questions in life and have no fear about being judged or
even to care if you are judged.

Do you play Pokemon go? Bingo. Got an xbox? No? Ps4? Etc etc. Never ending
list of stuff to keep asking until you hit the mark with no fear.

As an adult you have to be careful what to say for fear of offending them, or
to give the wrong impression. Kids have none of these fears.

~~~
tpeo
Kids do judge, that's the point of bullying. They don't care about whether
they might act inappropriately in a adult sense, but they still care about
what others think of them.

The real difference, I'd say, is that kids are very easily bored. They get
majorly annoyed if they don't have anything to do for more than three minutes,
so they leave no time for awkwardness: they'll either pester everyone around
them for attention until they either get a playmate or just get tired and
start playing alone.

Plus, pretty much all kids know how to play pretend, so it doesn't take much
for them to be playmates. Or at least it didn't take much in the far distant
past of 2001.

~~~
hashmp
I agree, but when I say kids I was thinking more of young kids. Say up until 7
or 8. You don't tend to see much bullying at that age, maybe teasing a bit but
they don't seem to be nasty in the way older kids can be when they bully other
kids ( like an on going campaign to isolate and intimidate a person).

This is my experience anyhow.

------
superplussed
Regardless of what happens with this app, it's an amazing project that is
coming from personal experience and a desire to do good by others. She has a
bright future indeed!

~~~
ddog78
Yep completely agree. I would hire her on the basis of this alone tbh, given I
was working in a field somewhat related to social causes. Apps take hard work
first and foremost, and dedication.

Oh hell.. writing this.. I think I'll contact these people at least, help them
out in their spare time.

------
nojvek
I remember being bullied several times as a kid for being the short, very slim
nerd.

But being a victim, do you want to sign up to an app? I had to learn it the
hard way to get myself out of it.

That being said I also know I ended becoming a bully out of revenge. A
vigilante bully.

~~~
edc117
This is an insightful (and a little sad) comment. I was bullied growing up as
well, and I used to find myself being more cruel than necessary with certain
people. Luckily I recognized it and learned to stop it, but it's a fact of
life that we are the sum of our experiences - even (especially?) the negative
ones.

------
kazinator
I'm trying to think how this kind of app might be an improvement over a
folded-over piece of cardboard which says "sit with us", placed on an actual
table. Or a notice on a bulletin board.

The problem that the bullied kid looking for a place to sit is stuck in one
school, with one lunch room. All the viable tables are "captive" in that one
room; the "UI" for selecting one can be that room itself. Even if there are a
couple of rooms, that just means a small search.

It seems that "find stuff" type apps really only make sense over a
metropolitan area, because you don't have a overview of that area; you don't
know what is happening where without an information feed.

There is less incremental environmental impact. Even if the cardboard sign is
re-used many times, it still has more of an environmental footprint compared
to one more app on the phone.

------
donmaq
This is very cool. I know this is a serious problem in my daughter's school
with 5th graders... ie 10 years old & they aren't allowed phones at school. I
wonder if there a viable asynch solution, ie via a browser...

~~~
joezydeco
Or just a simple button that the ambassadors can wear on their shirts?

~~~
Bartweiss
Then everyone knows that you're sitting with the Sit With Us kids - the beauty
of the app is that new kids can just take a seat without any visible
distinction.

------
IG88
Hmm, I'm not sure how I feel about this app. If there are no nerds sitting by
themselves, how will I know who to bully? /s

I think this is a step in the right direction. Using technology to break the
ice, without having to risk rejection in real life will help many people cope
with socializing in the lunchroom. It will really help minimize the social
awkwardness of asking to sit at someone's table. Friendly people will simply
be able to mark themselves as friendly and whoever needs a friend can simply
join them without fear of rejection.

------
shruubi
Like most commenters, I was also bullied relentlessly in high school. And, as
it seems most other people have been told to do, I took the advice of "do
nothing and ignore it" route.

Here's the thing, it's all well and good for an adult to tell a kid "oh just
ignore it", but you can't ignore someone sneaking up behind you and slamming
your face into a brick wall, so of course, adrenaline coursing through you,
you retaliate. Now, despite you being attacked out of the blue, for no reason
other than some sadistic asshole gets his jollies out of hurting you, and you
trying to defend yourself, when teachers dole out the punishment you also get
punished.

A system that punishes a kid that was assaulted from behind because they tried
to defend themselves from their attacker is not a system that is designed to
prevent bullying or help the bullied. The reason every kid in every school
thinks all those anti-bullying programs are stupid and don't want to
participate is because they realize something that the teachers don't, which
is that it is nothing but bullshit lip-service to make those whose
responsibility it is to actually do something feel better about their absolute
lack of care or effort.

------
iamthepieman
When I was a kid I hit another kid in the nose with a wooden block because he
was picking on me and another boy who were trying to play peacefully with said
blocks.

I immediately regretted it to the point where it is one of the most vivid (and
only) memories I have from that period (I was 4. it was pre-school)

I think I meant to threaten him but instead gave him a bloody nose and sent
him to the nurse.

I distinctly remember (this said in my 35 year old voice, I doubt it was this
clear a thought at 4) vowing to not use violence ever again to solve my
problems.

That said, the boy never picked on me or anyone around me again.

There is no moral to this story.

------
iamabraham
Regardless of how successful the app is, I applaud her (at any age) for making
something that seeks to solve a real problem. It's refreshing to see this kind
of thing come into existence - regardless of success.

------
kesselvon
This does not bode well for the next generation's social skills.

~~~
onion2k
That's one way of looking at it. Here's another: the fact there are kids who
feel _an entire school_ can make them feel unwelcome doesn't bode well for
parents and teachers who are failing raise children to be decent people. If
there are children who are bullied and ostracized at your kid's school then
_you_ are failing to teach your child to stand up to oppression and hate.

Children are learning this stuff largely by trial and error. Adults have a
responsibility to point them in the right direction.

~~~
jerf
Children are not adults who are just physically smaller. Unless you have a
magic invocation that can _instantly_ train children to behave the way you
want, there must, by necessity, be a window of time where this is still a
problem even if everybody is behaving as perfectly as can be expected.

Further, the idea that even adults act this way is pretty silly. It's masked
by the fact that in the adult world, we have far more power to self-sort into
groups we find acceptable. I am not aware of anybody who actually makes
everybody else feel welcome, and that certainly includes even those who make a
big show about how inclusive they are, which generally gives me a _lot_ of
statistical information about exactly which groups they're interested in
excluding.

~~~
onion2k
_Unless you have a magic invocation that can instantly train children to
behave the way you want, there must, by necessity, be a window of time where
this is still a problem even if everybody is behaving as perfectly as can be
expected._

I didn't say it could be done easily or instantly. What I'm saying is that
children bullying one another isn't _just_ a problem for the children; it's a
problem for the adults who those children are learning standards of acceptable
behavior from.

------
xoryo
Couldn't this also be used by the bullies? I mean they could put a spot open
and then when the kid approaches the spot, bully them away and embarrass them.

------
HillaryBriss
There doesn't seem to be an Android version

[http://sitwithus.io./](http://sitwithus.io./)

~~~
devopsproject
contact them and ask why

------
ourmandave
What if all my friends get this app and I suddenly find myself sitting alone
at lunch with the realization that I'm an asshole?

~~~
st3v3r
Hopefully you'll get the message, and stop being an asshole.

------
red_blobs
Friendship needs to be earned, or it won't really mean anything. Bullying is a
terrible thing and needs to be stopped, but this will do little to help out
the person being bullied in the long-run.

I was bullied in middle school and finding a good group of friends is what
stopped it. But I had to do it myself and earn it.

------
dev1n
what happens when two ambassadors for a school start competing to get more
people at their tables?

~~~
nxrabl
The free market in action!

------
libeclipse
It's a nice idea but ultimately it won't work, especially with secondary
school kids. The people that this would help won't use it for fear of seeming
desperate and the bullies would use it to target those kids.

------
ARothfusz
How did she create it? What did she use as a development framework or a back
end? How is she funding her servers and databases?

------
AWildDHHAppears
Won't the bullies use this app to lure "losers" over and then make fun of
them? I don't see how this will help.

------
jamesmp98
I could have done that when I was 16, but I wouldn't have had any media
attention :P

~~~
tonmoy
I could've made a web app like Facebook before Zucherburg

~~~
beamatronic
There actually _were_ apps just like it - Orkut and Friendster for example.

Facebook was originally somewhat exclusive, I believe you had to have a .edu
email address to sign up.

~~~
amyjess
> Facebook was originally somewhat exclusive, I believe you had to have a .edu
> email address to sign up.

You actually had to have an email address at one of the specific universities
Facebook supported.

Over their first few years, they slowly rolled out Facebook to more and more
universities, one at a time, and then they started adding high schools and
corporations as well.

I remember my college being super excited when Facebook finally rolled out to
us in spring 2005.

~~~
beamatronic
I think this did two things, it made an "exclusive" club that people wanted to
get into, and it also improved the signal to noise ratio versus a wide-open
sign up

