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Why do people believe it is okay for "young people" to be toxic?

Elite4Runner·10/20/2018, 9:20:04 PM·9 votes·7,469 views

I honestly don't understand why I have seen "they're just kids" so often lately when trying to defend the idea of people being ridiculously toxic toward one another in chat.

Don't we tell people to watch their language around kids, .. or have kids go sit in time-out for swearing?

Why is it suddenly acceptable to not only allow, but excuse people from verbally obscene just because we need to acknowledge that a large portion of the community are not adults yet?

I would think if anything, this should be a reason for Riot to have more strict control over the communication that is allowed in their game.

or

"They're just words. They don't mean anything"

With this in mind, we must acknowledge that children ARE more susceptible to the attitude of their peers.

This is not a healthy excuse.

It seems like people are twisting my point.

I'm not saying that children are the only ones being toxic.

My point is that it doesn't make any sense to use the fact that a large portion of the community are minors to excuse their toxic behavior.

30 Comments

AeroWaffle10/20/2018, 9:33:48 PM3 votes

I believe it's a result of how we grow up and learn as humans.

Although parents/guardians/teachers can do their best to tell their kids what is or is not acceptable children are still going to run around and discover things on their own. Be it testing things that were not taught or testing if what they were taught was right. Hopefully self-preservation has kicked in by this point and they don't test something that ends up seriously hurting them.

This curiosity is not limited to kids doing stupid actions but also pertains to social etiquette. With social etiquette it takes far longer (if it happens at all) because the benefits and the consequences are much more intangible compared to the lessons learned from questions such as, "What if I eat nothing but candy today?" or, "What if me and my friends start playing with fire (literally)?".

KVbqbFsC8e10/21/2018, 2:20:54 AM2 votes

Why does "toxicity" have to be "defended" anyway?

Its an online game. People get frustrated. This has been the case for every online game ever. For whatever reason, its League players in particular who are so distraught by "toxicity", which makes even less sense since you are given a mute button.

Zombie Gerbil10/20/2018, 9:59:45 PM2 votes

It's not the matter of being young, it's a matter ignorance. However, age does play a big part due to ignorance, influence, the attention to feel included or cool, and naivety. Overall, with immaturity lacks experience. Mature players mostly lash out due to personal issues, while immature players do it because they think they're trendy or some other silly things. Or they could simply have no empathy for other players because other players are nothing but objects behind the screen and an "obstacle" of them carrying.

So toxicity is mixed up between 3 major issues. Immaturity, lack of empathy, and personal issues. And the people who support toxicity are simply people are mixed with all three.

mlm olo mlm10/20/2018, 10:11:22 PM2 votes

How about parents watch their children when they are online?

You ask an impossible task from Riot.

R107 Games10/20/2018, 9:27:24 PM1 votes

Game is rated 13+. What kids?

Telephone Booth10/24/2018, 12:57:05 AM1 votes

I usually only see it as a comforting thing. Like someone creates a thread about getting flamed hard... Others tell them not to take it personally because they're probably just some kids who don't know any better. What you are describing, I have never actually seen... And I've read a lot of threads.

Fang10/20/2018, 9:59:02 PM1 votes

Any person may get influenced by something within a game and react to it; but the way that we approach and respond to an issue is highly dependent on how mature you are, and how much experience you have when it comes to dealing with conflict. Therefore, it's only logical that younger players are more susceptible to lashing out.

Although adults do it as well -- and frankly, is there always something wrong with it? Do you live a perfect life where you never swear at something bad that happened to you? Go figure, bad things happen in games as well. People didn't get banned right and left back in season 2-3-4 for replying to someone impacting the game negatively on purpose. Now you get to sit through an entire game without saying a single word, regardless of how much someone is inting or abusing any player in the game. Unless you want to throw a few false kind words the players' way. Is that a healthy way to deal with something? Hardly.

If you're referring to the kids that just spew bullshit for no good reason, then okay, it can get quite annoying, but it's so senseless that it's hardly offensive. Question is, do you want to report said people because you're truly offended and can't find any other way to deal with it, or is it because you know that the game doesn't allow it, so you're essentially just enforcing rules, but perhaps not really caring beyond that? They'll grow up in time, not everyone knows the boundaries of what's acceptable to begin with. Plus, a lot of people tend to deflect blame to protect themselves from feeling bad; unless you're aware that you do so, you won't stop up and be like "Am I being reasonable?" - hence why age does forgive certain things.

Oakleaf Ranger10/21/2018, 12:58:40 AM1 votes

Just young people?

I think everyone should be able to be "toxic."

Eleshakai10/21/2018, 5:02:56 PM1 votes

Toxicity is highly immature by nature. Thus it is more understandable that younger people wouldn't know any better. Not acceptable, but understandable.