FRIEND OR FOE: A LOOK INTO NEW AGE FRIENDSHIPS

-Emma Helbling, Opinion Editor

If you walk the halls of Mandan High School, you can find all sorts of differing friendships. In one friend group you can hear them exchange excited chatters about the newest movie hitting the Grand Theatre this weekend. In another you can hear them whisper frantically about the Biology test next period.

But a common way you might hear friends speak to each other is in a way that may seem concerning. With friends telling their peers to end their lives or that they don’t matter whilst laughing.

Psychology Today states that the current generation of Gen Z, “Kids today are about 40 percent lower in empathy than their counterparts of 20 or 30 years ago.” This lack of empathy is being made clearer in the presentation of friendships between current Gen Z’s and their peers.

Current students believe that teasing is often a form of communication in friendships but they also recognise that there can be some truth behind these barbs.

Juniors Scott Piper and Jackson Olson acknowledge that there can be truth behind so-called jokes between friends.

“It can be a form of friendship,” Olson said. “But it can get out of hand.”

“It can be, you know, nice giving your buddies crap about somethings.” Piper agreed. “But it can most definitely be taken out of hand.”

Some students don’t exactly see a bad side in harmful language in friendships.

“You can definitely be a friend and just joke around with them.” Junior Jayden Brobst said.

But where is the line between bully and friend drawn? Students say that if you pay attention to the kids saying the harmful words, you can quickly spot the difference between friend and foe.

“If you see those two kids together like all the time and then they are bullying each other then I’d just let it slide.” Olson said. “But if it’s just two kids that you’d never seen together then it would be hard to figure that out.”

There have been some situations in our school where teachers really didn’t know if a student was being bullied.

“I remember this one time when a teacher yelled at me and my buddies and we were just messing around.” Piper said.

It can sometimes seem to be a little bit impossible for teachers who have twenty-some kids in seven different class periods to keep track of who is friends with whom. So in instances like Piper’s above, they only see and hear half of what is actually going on. And they have a split second to make a decision that can majorly impact a student’s life.

In the end, some students believe that harmful language is healthy in friendships. That in some cases and in the end that it is only a form of constructive criticism.

“There’s a difference between shaping your buddies up and then making fun of them to the point where it goes too far.” Piper said.

“Like if you’re making fun of your buddy about something that he’s insecure about that’s not needed.” Olson said. “But if he’s wearing some dumb shirt you know, then it’s okay.”