He took his own life using the weapon of his father, a traffic policeman. Thus ended the search for Leonardo, the young fifteen-year-old from Senigallia, who suddenly disappeared and was found dead in his country house. «He was bullied and teased at school.” says the family’s lawyer, Pia Perricci. Leonardo is only the latest tragic case in chronological order. The first victim of cyberbullying was Carolina Picchio who, on the night between 4 and 5 January 2013, took her own life for sharing a video shot online for which she couldn’t bear the shame. «But the incidents have multiplied in the last ten years” he states Ivano Zoppigeneral secretary of the Carolina Foundation, the foundation founded in 2018 in the name of Carolina Picchio. «A year after Carolina, another girl from Padua took her own life due to the discomfort she felt at school. Discomfort and loneliness are the ingredients of the story of the late Michele, a teenager from Turin. Over time, the basis of our children’s discomfort has shown other forms, compared to traditional bullying. The story of Igor, victim of the blackout challenge, which pushes the kids to the limit of suffocation, is proof of this. Hatred online and the habit of fomenting insulting accusations and negative comments was also lethal for Vincent from Bologna.”
«Bullying, cyberbullying and other forms of juvenile/adolescent deviance fill spaces left empty in the lives of young people» continues Zoppi. «Spaces abandoned, very often by that network of adults who, instead, should accompany, support and welcome the new generations. Intercept and embrace their fragilities, which seem to be growing compared to the past, because these kids are faced with a much broader system of connections than a few decades ago. Then there was a courtyarda football pitch, the walk to school and, there, you measured yourself against your peers. Today there is the world of the Internet, which over time has eliminated borders, limits, but also protections. If on the one hand new technologies have brought knowledge, sharing and use of content, on the other they have amplified the spirit of competition, performance anxiety and, paradoxically, loneliness. If before you looked at the world from the car window, now you see it hunched over on yourself inside a screen.”
