Sunday, February 8, 2009

Browsing on the internet i found this article. Its not such a new article but it is about a teenage boy who committed suicide online. He announced he was going to commit suicide then cameraed himself live, while overdosing himself with drugs.
I was shocked and couldn't understand why he would do such a thing...Why would he want people, people he does not even know, to watch him commit suicide?was it because of his bipolar disorder(a psychiatric diagnosis that causes mood disorders)that he had?
was it a way for him to show his anger or disappointment or some other feeling for the society?
 It also makes me wonder how the people watching it felt.... it said in the article that the some viewers even encouraged him to do it through a commenting system.This is because they did not think that he was really going to commit suicide, just faking it. I think this is another problem that internet carries. The problem concerning the level of truth conveyed through the internet. There are so many fake stuff on the internet that we don't know how much we can trust anything. I feel these are problems the emerged with the development of sns. as a secondary effect that occurred as we increased the freedom to express ourselves online.

1 comment:

TSF said...

I hadn't heard of this particular case, but the phenomenon of "internet suicides" is somewhat prevalent in the news from Japan. Apparently, there are several chatrooms that cater to people who want to commit suicide, but don't want to do it alone. They are able to meet others online and meet up in real-life and commit suicide together. It's sad and depressing, but also an interesting phenomenon to look at.