It is a very sad story that of Professor Campania who attempted suicide after publishing full of hatred against the premier on his social networks, moving offensive words and threats from the direct target (i.e. the premier) to the indirect target (i.e. the daughter).
This story shows us how – inside the web – we become the worst version of ourselves. We click on the keys without reflecting. The fingers travel faster than the thoughts that should move. The keyboard works in this way: it makes you do things by leaning on the part of your mind that does not think, but acts. Once on the web, we become “other than us”. We write, we inspire, attack, offend, we threaten: the definition “keyboard lions” is suited in full. Because protected by the screen that prevents us from looking at the other in the eyes, we feel able to say everything, to do everything. And it is no coincidence that the online makes you rise from our deepest meanders that part of us that in ordinary life we keep at bay, we tame, we feel that it exists, but we do not make it act.
The difference between real life and virtual life is all here: in real life you put your face on it. So, automatically, you oblige yourself to putting the most advanced part of you into play, the one you think about acting before. You do it, because there are others around you, with their looks, their “body dimensions”, their presence that works – automatically – as a brake inhibitor to the uncontrolled expression of emotions, because it obliges to recognize and regulate them, preventing them from being expressed in a bestial way.
Professor from Campania only noticed after publishing what he published how terrible his message was. Overwhelmed by the indignation of a huge audience, transformed in turn into “keyboard lion”, it was made to subscribe from the same wave of hatred of which he himself had become promoter. The target of offenses and threats had moved. The words launched like stones towards another person returned to him with all their weight. Shame, pain, fear, anxiety, inadequacy: who knows how many emotions they all turned on in one fell swoop. That absolute power, fomented by the screen that makes you feel capable of everything, has become impotence and self -elevity.
This news affects us a lot because we are used to attributing these dynamics to the very young, not to adults “facts and finished”, moreover with authoritative educational roles in the lives of those very young people who often condemn for what they live, do and are in the Oonline.
The virtual is not real, but what you do inside has enormous consequences for your real life. And for that of others. The case of Professor Campania told you in all its dramatic truth. We wish him to recover and transform his error not in self -loss (which would only add pain in pain) but on the occasion to tell the world how important it is to think before posting. But above all that, in life, it is better to be a peace manufacturers. And not hatred.
