Comments on: Is The Internet Linked To Welsh Suicides?

Seven Young People Who Used Social Network Site Have Taken Their Lives

[godofredo29]

When you''re male it doesn''t take a lot of thought to come up with reasons for not going on, especially when you''ve got a thirty-three year old single loner as the role model you''re told to emulate.

[mennowoman]

Internet chat rooms and forums sites can get pretty mean very quickly. There''s something about talking to a stranger anonymously that makes people say cruel things they would never say face to face. Plus, on the internet, people can pretend to be someone else altogether. Some people I know have dozens of personnas, some of them nice, others vicious. They use the mean personnas to hurt people. In the 6 years I''ve been using chat and forums, I''ve known six or seven people who killed themselves because of repeated vicious attacks from other users. Especially in this world where people already feel lonely and isolated, such attacks can be soul-killing.

[robbielouise]

At my granddaughters high school in South Carolina, 4 or 5 kids killed themselves. My granddaughter said there was a sucide pact between some kids. I had read that it started in Japan and was on the internet. Which would naturally make it spread around the world.

Kids are also getting high by hanging themselves and stopping the hanging before they pass out. They don''t realize that they may not be able to stop before they pass out and die.

I don''t think parents are to blame. The teen years are years of torture usually only in their minds. They don''t know who they should be and peer pressure is extreme. They also don''t think they have any worth, they hate themselves and can find no reason to live. They don''t understand what they are going thru is happening to everyone. I remember at 15 sitting outside looking to the sky and saying "I don''t belong here, someone please come get me out of this insane place". No one came so I had to adjust to the insanity.

[salty1954]

I don''t know what is causing teen suicide in Wales.

In the US, homophobia is one of the main causes of teen suicide.
Gay teens hear their parents voicing hatred against homosexuality and feel intense shame.
Suicide is the number one cause of death for gay teens.

[nothappyatall]

"said the Internet sites they had frequented may have been influential. "

May have but wasnt, LIFE was the cause- they had enough, dont blame the internet for weak minded peoples actions they would have done eventually, regardless.


"If I could understand why she done it, maybe she could try help save another child," Tina Phillips said.
But Leah''s simply told them she doesn''t know why she tried to take her own life."

Maybe cause she is a moron or mentally ill, it wasnt the internet''s fault it was her own.

[hypnotoad72]

Because too many people have watched the new "Torchwood" and "Doctor Who" shows and dared to criticize them?

In seriousness, the media and what it says set the stage. If you think the world is going down the toilet, some would want to escape it too. Listen to the songs, watch the TV and movies, read the articles - see what the media is saying. People WILL believe it. And, if we''re to be a proper society, we need some changes.

My favorite aunt states one should do what makes them in happy in life; one''s talents in a given field WILL make them succeed. My parents state whatever can be done to make money.

The truth is in the middle; for anyone''s life to be fulfilling and prosperous, one has to find what they''re good at and what drives them.

Indeed, the one thing all my relatives have in common: "Live for today". Which is ironic once you add Masturcard(tm) into the equation... live for today, plan for tomorrow, it''s a bit of a pisser if tomorrow never comes... Maybe the 15 year old was a goth-type existentialist, begging to wear a leash. Who knows?

Now ask what''s profitable or "where the market is". Maybe some 15 year olds have inferred/conjectured what might (OR MIGHT NOT) happen in 10~50 years and decided it''s better to end it early. Others may have a chemical imbalance. Some are shy, autistic, or have other forms of PDDs that have handicapped their lives.

YMMV, but the number of potential reasons is longer than what I''d want to respond with.

[ki8911]

I don''t think anyone will be able to find the answer. I have been struggling the last 4 years trying to rack my brain, my heart, my soul, to understand why my beautiful Erika killed herself at 15. I''ll never know what it was that crushed her inside that life was so unbearable that she had to hang herself. We as humans and parents desparately want an answer as to why, but blaming it on something like the Internet is just like saying its god will? That''s not an answer, it is a scapegoat. We refuse to look in the mirror, that how we are as parents is going to totally influence our children. Blaming something or someone else is denial of respondsibility.