Teens tweet threat to American Airlines has frightening connotations

A teenager’s threat to an airline prompted a flurry of copycats, despite her arrest, says Mark Johanson.

IF it was just one unenlightened teenager, perhaps we could chalk it up to the innocence of youth. But when more than a dozen teens around the world jump on the bomb threat bandwagon, clearly there’s trouble brewing in the Twitterverse.

In the post-9/11 world, most kids learn pretty early on that it’s a bad idea to make threats, especially at an airline. Yet, as our interactions increasingly move into the digital sphere, there appears to be a disconnect between the perceived innocuousness of what’s said in the social media realms, and the harsh reality of what will be taken seriously in the real world.