Facebook and MySpace drive teens to suicide
Ok, away from the lovey dovey mushy stuff...........Does QL come into this category ???????????????????????
The spiritual leader of the four million Roman Catholics in England and Wales has damned social network sites, accusing them of undermining community life and leading teenagers to suicide.
Archbishop of Westminster Vincent Nichols said MySpace and Facebook led young people to seek "transient" friendships, with quantity becoming more important than quality.
He said a key factor in suicide among young people was the trauma caused when such loose relationships collapsed.
"Friendship is not a commodity," he told said. "Friendship is something that is hard work and enduring when it's right".
Archbishop Nichols said that social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace encouraged a form of communication that was not "rounded", and would not therefore build rounded communities. He said young people were being encouraged to build up collections of friends as commodities, that these friendships could easily collapse, and teenagers were left desolate when they did.
Arguing that society was losing some of its ability to build communities through inter-personal communication because of the result of excessive use of texts and e-mails rather than face-to-face meetings or telephone conversations, he said too much emphasis was placed on the number of "friends" a person has rather than the quality of those friendships.
He said skills such as reading a person's mood and body language were in decline, and that exclusive use of electronic information had a "dehumanising" effect on community life.
"Facebook and MySpace might contribute towards communities, but I'm wary about it," he said.
"Among young people often a key factor in their committing suicide is the trauma of transient relationships. They throw themselves into a friendship or network of friendships, then it collapses and they're desolate.
"It's an all-or-nothing syndrome that you have to have in an attempt to shore up an identity; a collection of friends about whom you can talk and even boast."
His argument that the internet and mobile phones are "dehumanising" community life come after the death of 15-year-old schoolgirl Megan Gillan, who took a fatal overdose of painkillers last week after being bullied on Bebo, another networking site.
The Times
...of You've Got Mail :) Loved that one long back...
Source:
- A study Conducted by FriedUnicorn - Vol I (September,1999)
OOps (double post)...
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One life to live, live it to the fullest.
happened to see a humor clip where a boy and a girl chat for hours on net but when one day they meet face to face they could hardly utter a word and then they take out their laptops and sitting there start chatting using net ...and the words start flowing...
Seems like the modern comminication means may lead to verbal communication deficiency, if one gets involved too much...however a good mix can be quite rewarding too...
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One life to live, live it to the fullest.
Well I don't know about anyone else but I only spend hours in these virtual communities during work. After work I'm out with real people.
There are negatives and poitives.. Howeever, even within my friends i have seen that such communities are being used to increase the number of contacts / friends, rather than work on building quality / meaningful relationships.
Also we are tending to spend long hours in these virtual communities whilst losing the ability to go out and make friends..
Internet can be an extremely useful and rewarding tool that can be used to supplement communication and enrich friendships. If these are not already in place, then the problem exists regardless if they also use social networking sites. It's like shooting the messenger. It does nothing to address the crux of the problem by blaming the internet.
With all the benefits coming along, still I consider Internet and all the modern communication tools as a "bad teacher"...Yesterday I saw on BBC a show regarding the inter human relationship and how the modern life impact on the child psychical behavior. It was scary! Kid with busy parents, left alone in front of TV or computer, developed a lot of strange habits, psychical problems, become alienated. They explained that the human is a social animal, in need of visual and physical contact with his own kind.That's why this "Free hug campaign" is a big hit!
Yes, your priest is damn right... :(
Its a complex issue. As with anything, I think that with the proper parental guidance there''s not harm in them, but without....
Archbishop Nichols's viewpoint suggests that he has a limited exposure to such platforms.
I can't believe he said "trauma of transient relationships"...I thought these social networking websites are also meant to help people find virtual friendships and relationships and I don't think anyone commits suicide because of an online friend or lover ditching them.
Just becoz some people who commit suicide happen to be on facebook and myspace doesn't mean that its being promoted or affected in any way by these websites.
Source:
- A study Conducted by FriedUnicorn - Vol I (September,1999)