I read an article the other day about a boy who had been talking about committing suicide on his web cam to random online viewers. He posted links to his web cam on a few other sites, and had "672,000 unique visitors in October". They do not know how many viewers watched him die on his web cam, but when the police found him 12 hours later lying dead of a medication overdose, people were found writing to the web cam such things as "OMFG and LOL".
I have serious issues with what happened. It is scary that the technology we have has now created a new way for people to publicly kill themselves (“equivalent to jumping off a bridge”). It is even more upsetting that people are so apathetic that no one cared enough to do anything about his suicide threats. It’s not difficult for the police to track the IP address of a web cam. If someone had phoned in repeated threats from the site his death would not have had to happen as it did. Comments like the LOL's when the cops arrived are even more upsetting. Not only did people sit there and watch him die, it never occured to anyone to phone in the issue when he stopped moving for 12 hours straight. To top it off they had the audacity to laugh through the computer about what was happening. To tie this into the reading material- the idea that the group never did anything about the events could be because of the diffusion of responsibility felt by its viewers, or maybe that the technology we have now is not quite being used for as its purpose was intended.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27841948/
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While I agree something should have been done I realize the impact of something being done. If every person who threatened suicide online was reported to police we'd actually need a special task force for suicide prevention or something on the lines. I've volunteered for a teen help site for many years. I have known of two deaths of members in about 4 years. I know that a lot of people on that site alone talk about wanting to die or kill themselves though many of them do not go through with it. Part may be because we are a teen help site so we work to help people with their problems. It is also very hard to tell how serious some one in. In turn I think what can be done is that we don't publicize what has happened because then we are showing the attention it grabs while putting the idea in others heads.
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