A 24 year old man in Japan posted on his Ustream account that he was going to kill himself the following week. Many people were commenting on his post saying things like "Do it right now" and "is this a joke?". Just this Friday Japanese authorities reported he had indeed committed suicide, after receiving 911 calls from the viewers watching the Ustream. Sociologists states that "social media has created new challenges in fighting societal problems such as suicide". Japan is one of the leading nations when it comes to high rates of suicide."Every year almost thirty thousand Japanese kill themselves" CNN reporter Kyung Lah
It is such a surprise to see social media having an even more negative effect of society psychologically. This story also makes me wonder how is it that people can really watch something like a suicide...live?
Could it be that it is not social media but our society that propels, controls, and utilize social media in a manner that creates this kind of medium in which people feel they can commit suicide live via internet?
How sad it is to come to the realization that reality is so skewed in this day and age that the people watching the Ustream were not sure if it was even actual footage?
Lah states that situations like this depict a acute shift in society's notion of privacy especially among young people of our generation. Assistant Professor Aucouturier of Temple university states that this is going to change our lives in the future, specifically "the issue of what is acceptable to broadcast" and how important other people's opinions are.
It is beyond disappointing that someone who needed help reached out via social media and no one took him seriously. We need to come up with better strategies that help us realize and fully comprehend how close we are to one another thanks to social media. So that things like this do not occur again. I think it is fair to assume that a post or comment on social media sites is almost as good as a phone call conversation. My experiment two weeks ago is a testimony to that. It is just as much our responsibility to survey what goes on social media sites, as it is the responsibility of those who provide on host the sites for us. Especially, if it can help us help someone else.
Source:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/11/12/japan.suicide.broadcast/index.html
No comments:
Post a Comment