Social media & suicide

A social network is a social structure made up of individuals or organizations who communicate and interact with each other. Extraversion refers to the tendency to be socially dominant, exert leadership, and influence on others.

There are many people that would agree that social media has enhanced more than hindered the communication of children and adolescents of this generation. Social media has a very large impact on our day to day lives. There are many people in society that cannot function without the constant connection to social media.

Using social media websites is among the most common activities to pass the time of today’s children and adolescents . In my experience social media is enhancing our development in communication skills in our day to day live all around the world.
In the other hands, there is increasing evidence that the Internet and social media can influence suicide-related behavior.

In the last few years, we have seen an explosion of social media and networkings sites like Facebook, Twitter and MySpace etc. Especially, the children cherish this new and high-tech way of remaining connected with friends and meeting new people. However, it is also important for parents to keep themselves aware of some of the negative effects of these sites, and how to protect their children. Here, we are listing the top 10 insidious effects that social media may have on children. 

Some of this information is taken from a recent study conducted by researchers at University of Rome. They conducted a survey of 50,000 people to know about the effects of social media on their lives.

It is apparent from the results that overall the social media has a negative effect on the social well-being of an individual:

1. Hate Speech:
The kids using Facebook or other social media sites are at a greater risk of suffering from the hate speech. This problem can be more serious for the girls and the children belonging to the minorities and communities that are discriminated against. In online interactions, people with unknown identities may easily indulge in the hate speech or disrespectful behaviour. While during a face to face interaction an individual may think twice before passing any such remark.

2. Social Distrust:
As mentioned that unknown online users may indulge in aggressive or offensive behavior. Kids may think if such aggression or offensive is committed in real life situation. This may result in social distrust towards the unknown others.

3. Cyber Bullying
One of the often cited dangers of social media is cyber bullying. It occurs when a person uses sites like Facebook to adopt a threatening behavior towards someone during a discussion or sends threatening messages.

4. Identity theft
One of the big problems with social media sites is that the children often do not fully read or understand the privacy settings of their accounts. They are unaware of the risks of disclosing unnecessary personal information. According to a recent survey, 20% of the youth think it to be perfectly safe to post their personal information and photos online. Such kids may easily become victim of the identity theft.

5. Cyber-stalking:
Stalking is defined as the obsessive monitoring or attention towards the victim that may harass him or her. Cyber-stalking can be done in many different ways using social media. Sometimes, an ex-boyfriend or spouse may get angry at the breakup of a relation and use social media to pursue the victim. In another case, a relationship that was developed online gets sour and the personal information shared can be used by the stalker. Or, someone may also fall victim to a random cyber stalking attack.

6. Explicit Or Violent Imagery:
Spending a lot of time on the social media sites like facebook can be dangerous, as often as a result of political events around the world, explicit and violent imagery get shown on the discussion threads. Often it is very difficult to moderate such content due to its viral nature. This may have a negative effect on the minds of the children, leading them to have a sadistic and defeatist view of the world.

7. Sharing too much:
Everyone of us has its own set of beliefs and ideas that we try to live upto. In our daily life we have an interaction with limited circle of friends. However, sharing such ideas over websites like Facebook may result in dissemination of this information with people that we would not want normal life. This may even prove fatal for our relationship with those people.

8. Online grooming:
One of the most distressing aspects of the social media is the growing evidence that paedophiles may use fake accounts on the social media to make friendships with young children and teenagers. They pretend to be of the same age to win children’s confidence. They can then gain vital personal information like their schools and the places where they hang out. They can then use that information to bully and make sexual contact with their victims or exposing them to explicit imagery or content.

9. Emotional Implications:
Psychological experts warn that social media sites can have emotional implications for kids who are already suffering from low self-esteem or confidence. Such children may judge their success by the number of friends they have on the facebook or if they are included in a specific group of people. This may lead to further diminishing of their confidence.

10. Lack Of Interpersonal Skills:
Children spending too much time online may consider a virtual relation substitute for a real one. By spending more time online they often ignore the importance and the appropriate behaviour related to face-to-face contact. Hence, the set of interpersonal skills that are necessary for the success in the real life may not develop properly.

<< Here are some studies showing how internet affects young people at risk of self-harm or suicide>>

Oxford researchers have found internet forums provide a support network for socially isolated young people. However, they also conclude that the internet is linked to an increased risk of suicide and self-harm among vulnerable adolescents.

Following what is thought to be the biggest review of existing studies into internet use and young people, the researchers suggest that, in future, clinical assessments of such young people should include questions about the online content they have viewed.

The global review, published in the journal PLOS ONE, shows that young people at risk of self-harm or suicide were often online for longer periods than other teenagers. The Oxford team analysed a total of 14 studies and found contradictory findings on whether the internet exerted a positive or negative influence. Some studies found that internet forums supported and connect socially isolated people, helping them to cope. But other studies concluded that young people who went online to find out more about self-harm and suicide were exposed to violent imagery and acted out what they had seen online. The review finds that internet use is linked with more violent methods of self-harm.

Moderate or severe addiction to the internet is also connected to an increased risk of self-harm, as well as increased levels of depression or thoughts about suicide, according to the Oxford review. The review also says there is a strong link between young people using internet forums and an increased risk of suicide – a connection not found in relation to other social network sites. In one of the studies reviewed, well over half (59%) of young people interviewed said they had researched suicide online. Meanwhile, of 15 teenagers who had carried out particularly violent acts of self-harm, 80% said they had gone online to research self-harm beforehand. Of 34 who self-harmed by cutting, 73% said they had researched it online.

Young people who used the forums stressed the value of anonymity. One of the studies reviewed suggested that young people using the forums appeared to normalise self-harm. Most users went to the forums for empathy or to discuss safety issues rather than talk about how they could reduce their self-harming behaviour. Another study showed that out of nearly 300 posts, 9% were about methods of self-harm and users went to the forums to swap tips on how to hide the problem.

Internet forums did not make the users feel any better, and in some cases they showed signs of increasing distress after using the sites, said one study. However, another study contradicts this, saying that an analysis of the posts created by forum users reveals that by the third month they were less distressed than they had been in the first couple of months. Young people who went to the forums said positive behaviour was encouraged – they congratulated each other for not cutting or urged one another to seek help from GPs. Despite this, the review says that overall although forums may have provided emotional support, there is no evidence to suggest that this translated into young people actually reducing levels of self-harm. There was no consensus among users as to whether forums altered this behaviour.

The review also highlights the risk of cyber-bullying to vulnerable young people. Online bullying was found to make victims more likely to self-harm. One study suggested that it slightly increased rates of attempted suicide by the victim as well as the perpetrator.

Another Study Shows:

The average person now spends more time each day on their phone and computer than they do sleeping.
The statistics all tell the same story: Social media are gaining in popularity every day.

The average time spent on social networks per day: 1.72 hours (in 2015).
The average number of hours a teenager spends online per week: 27 (2015).
Social media have become prominent parts of life for many young people today. Most people engage with social media without stopping to think what the effects are on our lives, whether positive or negative. Are we as a society becoming more concerned with Facebook "friends" than we are with the people we interact with face-to-face in our daily lives? What will the long term effects of today's social media use be?

There are many positive aspects, but there are equally as many dangers that come with the use of sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google +, Tumblr, Instagram, gaming sites, and blogs. In order to make the right choices, we must dig in and research this topic thoroughly.

Here are some real social

media suicide stories:

Woman Hospitalised After Excessive WhatsApp Typing:

The woman who was hospitalized after excessive WhatsApp typing.
A woman used the WhatsApp messaging service so much over the last Christmas holiday that she ended up in hospital.

The Lancet medical journal noted a report by medical staff who treated a 34-year-old emergency medicine physician who was 27 weeks pregnant and sought treatment for severe pain in her wrists.

She had no history of trauma and had not engaged in any excessive physical activity in the previous days. However, on Christmas Day 2013, she spent an estimated six hours holding a weighty mobile phone while sending vast quantities of messages.

The diagnosis was bilateral extensor pollicis longus tendinitis of the thumb – or what they have nicknamed "WhatsAppitis." (source )

The teenager who tried to kill himself because he wasn't satisfied with the quality of his selfies:

The teenager who tried to kill himself because he wasn't satisfied with the quality of his selfies.

The teenager who tried to kill himself because he wasn't satisfied with the quality of his selfies
A selfie-addicted British teen tried to kill himself because he didn't like any of the photos he had taken.

Danny Bowman, 19, spent up to 10 hours each day taking up to 200 photos of himself on his iPhone. He then nearly overdosed on pills, but his mother intervened and kept him alive.

Bowman's case is extreme, yes, but psychiatrists are starting to consider selfie addiction as a serious mental health issue.(source)

The young woman who committed suicide after being accused of Facebook addiction:

In February 2014, a 24-year-old Indian woman who was confronted by her parents over her obsession with Facebook responded by hanging herself from a ceiling fan.

Sushma Goswami, 24, had discovered Facebook only a few months earlier and the site quickly turned into an addiction as she started spending hours in front of her computer. Her younger brother followed suit and both raised the ire of their parents for neglecting their daily chores while doing little else beyond spending time online. The siblings each had more than a thousand friends on Facebook, despite spending their lives as social recluses focused almost entirely on their studies.

Following the confrontation with her parents, Goswami locked herself in her room and was found hanging from a ceiling fan the next morning.

Sadly, this isn't the first time a young Indian woman took her own life over Facebook. In October 2013, a 17-year-old girl in Parbhani district of Maharashtra committed suicide after an argument with her parents over her obsession with Facebook. "Is Facebook so bad? I cannot stay in a home with such restrictions as I can't live without Facebook," she wrote in her suicide note. (sorce)


The two boys killed for playing an internet drinking game:

The two men killed for playing an internet drinking game
An online drinking craze linked to the deaths of two teenagers over one weekend in February continues, despite warnings that it is lethal when taken to its extreme.

The internet trend, known as "neknomination" involves young people filming themselves gulping down large amounts of alcohol in increasingly dangerous settings and posting them online. At the end of the video they shout out a friend's name and nominate them to perform their own stunt.

Jonny Byrne, a 19-year-old from County Carlow, Ireland, was discovered floating in a river after jumping in as part of a nomination stunt.

A Facebook page dedicated to the craze called NI NeKnomination has now been discontinued and turned to an alcohol awareness page.

Just hours before the discovery of Jonny Byrne's body, Ross Cummins, 22, was found unconscious in a house in Dublin and died later in hospital. Irish media reported that he was drinking spirits at the time of his death and that his extreme drinking was part of a Neknomination. (source )

Coroner warns of dangers of Facebook after student, 19, targeted by young women bullies online hanged himself:

Two young women have been cautioned by police after a young man who was being bullied online hanged himself.

At the inquest into the death of 19-year-old Lewis Thelwall, who committed suicide after false rumours about him were put on Facebook, a coroner warned users of social networking sites to 'think of the consequences'.

Philip Rogers, coroner for Neath and Port Talbot, said the two women had written 'malicious and completely unfounded' posts about 'colourful' Mr Thelwall on the site.

The inquest into the death of the budding photographer from Port Talbot who was known for dyeing his hair bright colours heard how he was targeted by others who posted false rumours about him online.

Police studied his Facebook messages to discover 'malicious and completely unfounded' allegations against Mr Thelwall, the inquest heard.

Detective Constable Lee Stephens, of South Wales police, described Mr Thelwall as a 'happy-go-lucky character' who was upset at Facebook slurs.

He said he interviewed several young people after Mr Thelwall death and investigated the Facebook comments before cautioning two young women, who can't be identified for legal reasons, for malicious communication.

Det Con Stephens said: 'The two have apologised for their actions.’(source .)

Teenager Hannah Smith killed herself because of online bullying:

The father of a teenage girl who killed herself after being abused by bullies on a social networking site has called for it to be closed down.

Dave Smith said his daughter, Hannah, 14, died on Friday in Lutterworth, Leicestershire, after being "cyberbullied" on the question-and-answer website ask.fm, which allows users to send messages without their identity being disclosed.

He is urging the authorities to close down the site, and those like it, after stumbling across cruel taunts from "trolls" that he said drove his daughter to take her own life.

"How many more teenagers will kill themselves because of online abuse before something is done? These sick people are just able to go online and hide behind a mask of anonymity while they abuse vulnerable teenagers," he told the Daily Mirror.

We've lost Hannah in the most horrendous way imaginable. It's time something was done so that no other family has to go through this."

He urged parents not to allow their children to use the website.

The schoolgirl was found hanged in her bedroom by her sister, Jo, 16. Smith later found a note written by Hannah which read: "I wonder if it's ever going to get better," the Mirror reported.

Stepmother Deborah Smith said Hannah had shown no signs of the torment she was suffering.

"Hannah was bubbly, bright, cheerful and never had a glum face, " she told the Mirror. "There was no warning."(source )

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References and Further Reading:

Beres, D. (n.d.): 5 Weird Negative Effects of Social Media on Your Brain. Reader's Digest.

California Adolescent Health Collaborative. (2011, 8). Impact of Social Media on Adolescent Behavioral Health in California phi.org.

Strickland, J. (n.d.). What are the pros and cons of social networking sites?