Social Media & Sucide

Social Media & sucide is a relatively new phenomenon, which influences suicide-related behavior. Suicide is a leading cause of death worldwide. According to the World Health Organization, in the year 2020, approximately 1.54 million people will die from suicide.[1] There is increasing evidence that this behavior of using social media affects and changes people's lives, especially in teenagers. Suicide has been identified not only as an individual phenomenon, but it is influenced by social and environmental factors.[1] As the internet becomes more ingrained in people's everyday life, mental and emotional issues it can cause to an individual.

In one of the widely known cases, the death of Phoebe Prince, it is generally believed that her actions of suicide were motivated by cyberbullying. Cyberbullying is a huge problem linked to increases in suicide rates (Mason, 2008). One explanation that has arisen, is the cause and effect relationship between social media advertised suicides and younger generations being influenced by them. Aside from kids being influenced by suicide tendencies online, there is the psychological explanation behind "of fame". The first person who committed suicide live on today's social media platforms – Océane Ebem, an eighteen-year-old woman from Égly in the suburbs of Paris – explicitly said, "I want to communicate a message, and I want it to be passed around, even if it's very shocking."[3] In Océane Ebem's suicide, she livestreamed it on a social networking site called Periscope. In this stream she talked about how she had been physically abused by her boyfriend, and gave his name and means to contact him. In response to her confession, the viewers watching the livestream could care less about what she had to say and how to help. Instead they bullied her in the comments section and sayed incredibly mean and hurtful things. In response, she livestreamed her suicide and thousands of people saw it.

The media tends to popularize videos and social media posts in order to inform the country of the rising trouble, which creates popular appeal to the young and immature minds of teenagers. Social media could provide higher risks with the promotion of different kinds of pro-suicidal sites, message boards, chat rooms and forums. In addition, the Internet not only reports suicide incidents but documents suicide methods (for example, suicide pacts, an agreement between two or more people to commit suicide at a particular time and often by the same lethal means). The role the Internet plays, particularly social media, in suicide-related behavior is a topic of growing interest.

How to react when you see a sucidal post on Facebook???

Facebook opens us to a constant stream of people’s thoughts, feelings, and daily actions. People often update about how they are feeling bad, so sometimes you may ignore updates because you think the person is being overdramatic or looking for attention. If you see a suicidal post on Facebook, you should not ignore it, but try to get the person the help they need. You can immediately call 911 or emergency services or the suicide hotline at 1-800-SUICIDE (1-800-784-2433). If you don't think the person is in immediate danger, you can alert Facebook to the suicidal content, reach out to the person, contact their family, or contact emergency services.

Responding on Facebook

Comment and encourage the person to seek help. Many people ignore suicidal social media posts for various reasons. However, social media suicide threats should be considered as serious as any other suicide threat.[1] You may want to reply back to the person or send them a private message where you encourage them to seek help. Consider sending them the numbers to a suicide hotline to talk with a trained suicide counselor.[2]
Two suicide hotline numbers you can give them are 1-800-SUICIDE (1-800-784-2433) or 1-800-273-TALK (8255). Suicide.org provides suicide hotlines broken down by state, and also provides international numbers. They also give numbers for Spanish speaking hotlines, and hotlines geared towards specific groups, such as LGBT youth and military veterans.[3]

Report the post. When you see a suicide status update on Facebook, you have the option to report the post. When you report the post, it alerts Facebook that the poster may need help. Facebook then sends the person a message asking them if they would like to talk to someone (like a helpline worker) or be sent some tips to help them work through the problem.[4]
Reporting the post is anonymous, so the poster won’t know you reported them.
To find the “Report Post” link, look for the arrow in the top right of the status box. When you hit the arrow, it should give you the option to “Report Post.”

Use Facebook’s “Report Suicidal Content” option. When you see a suicidal message on Facebook, you can report them directly to Facebook. This option is different than simple reporting the post. You find the "report suicidal content" page in Facebook's help section and provide information directly to Facebook.[5]
You will need to provide the person’s name, the link to their profile, a link to the suicidal content, and a screenshot of the post.

Helping the Person

Contact the person’s family and friends. If you see a suicide threat but are not close enough to the person to contact them yourself, reach out to the person’s family or friends. They may not be aware of the post. Let them know what you saw on Facebook and that you are worried about the poster.
The person’s family and friends may be able to reach the person better than you can. They may be aware of a suicide plan already in place that you don’t know about.
For example, you may say, "I saw a post on Jane's Facebook page where she threatened to commit suicide. I am concerned about her and wasn't sure if you knew about this post."

Reach out to the person you may want to reach out to the person and offer support. Start off by offering to listen to the person. Don’t be afraid to ask, “Are you thinking about suicide?” and “What has led you to feel this way?” Listen as the person shares their feelings with you.[7]
Comfort the person. Be kind, gentle, and supportive as you let the person know that you are there for them.
Let the person know that you are concerned about them. Say, “I am concerned about your safety and your life. You are important.”
Tell the person you care about them and they mean something to you. For example, say, “You are important to me. I care about you.” You may even want to pay them a visit if you live close to the person and know them well.

Call emergency services- If a person is threatening to commit suicide, they need help. If you believe they need immediate help because they are going to commit suicide very soon, call 911 or other emergency services. Do not feel bad or embarrassed about calling for help. A threat of suicide is serious and needs to be dealt with accordingly.[8]
When you contact emergency services, tell them that the person is threatening to commit suicide via Facebook and you are concerned about their safety and life.
You can also try calling a suicide prevention hotline yourself to ask for help with how to deal with the situation.

Taking Care of Yourself

Do what you can you may get extremely upset if you see someone you know or care about threatening to commit suicide. You should do what you can to help the person, but then let it go. Don’t let yourself get inappropriately emotionally invested in the situation. You cannot control what the person does, only what you do to help. Once you have helped, there is nothing more you can do.[9]
You can check up on the person and offer support as they deal with the aftermath of the suicide threat.
However, make sure to set up boundaries to protect your own mental health. Remember that you can only control your life and not the other person’s. To set up boundaries, start by addressing what is in your power to do. This may be calling 911, contacting their family, or reaching out to them and listening. Next, you should do what you can. Tell yourself, "These are the actions that are within my control to do." Then, remove yourself emotionally from the situation. You can only control what you do, not what they do. Remind yourself, "I have done what I could do. I am not in control of the other person. I now will have to let it go and take care of myself.

Refrain from being the person’s counselor:- You should not try to counsel the person yourself. Reaching out to the person, checking on them to gauge their mental status, and letting them know you care are important things you can do. However, you should let the professionals counsel the person.

Don’t try to give the person advice or convince them not to commit suicide. You are not a trained suicide counselor, so you should leave that to the professionals. You may say something to trigger a negative response or something that may upset the person’s fragile emotional and mental state.

Talk to a counselor:- if you have helped someone who threatened suicide on Facebook, the experience may have taken an emotional toll on you. You may want to discuss your experience and feelings with a trained counselor who can help you sort through any grief, guilt, or other negative feelings.

Even if the person is fine, getting involved may affect you. Instead of trying to “get over it” on your own, talk through the experience with someone trained in dealing with these situations.
You may say to the counselor, "I recently had someone I know threaten to commit suicide on Facebook. This really affected me. I cannot imagine the world without this person, and I keep worrying that they are going to go through with it. I know I am obsessing about this, and I need help to learn how to cope."



                 To be continued.............

Student suicides in Pakistan, wake-up call for parents and educational administrators

  
Suicides among Pakistani students are on the rise, recently 4 students committed suicides within a span of few days in Chitral a remote district of KPK just after the announcement of the intermediate (higher secondary school) results. According to the reports all four students committed suicide for not being able to achieve the grades, they or their parents were expecting. One student named Fareed Ahmed killed himself after getting 81 percent marks with which he was not satisfied. This tragic trend is not just alarming but raises serious questions about the state of mental health of our teenagers. The suicidal tendencies among students in Asian countries like Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, have been reported extensively and are well documented, governments in these countries have started to take this issue of student suicides seriously many non-government organizations work to help students to cope with stress and other factors that cause suicidal tendencies.

Situation in our country is totally different, suicides and mental health in general have never been taken seriously, and the issue of student suicide remains without any research to understand its causes. While availability of psychological counseling and guidance in schools remains a distant dream, parenting training is equally unheard of. The first and foremost thing is to understand what causes a youngster to annihilate his or her life in the prime of youth.


Why are students committing suicides? 


What makes a student opt for the tragic course of choosing a permanent solution for his temporary problems i.e. choosing death over a troubled life? Students commit suicides because of the crushing stress that a youngster has to go through because of pressure of expectations exerted on him/her from multiple sides. Parents want their children to excel, teachers want them to win laurels for the school, and society keeps reminding them that success and guarantee for a secure future depends on the grades they achieve in the exams.  In Pakistan academic reasons top the list of the causes of student suicides, academic reasons mean failures or perceived failures in achieving the educational goals setup by student for himself or the mile stones that parents expect their child to achieve.

The inability to cope with personal failure: a student works hard, devotes tremendous amount of his or her youthful energy and time for a target and when he falls short of his expectations he can’t accept this reality, he is unable the analyze what has happened, is overtaken by shock and  disbelief and puts all the blame on himself. This false sense of an irreversible and irreparable loss pushes him to the point of snuffing out the candle of his own life.

The crushing burden of parental expectations: parents have the final say in determining the career path of a Pakistani kid in most cases if not in all cases. A typical middle class student in Pakistan must prove him smart enough to get admission in a medical or engineering college to become a doctor, engineer or a business executive in line with the aspirations of his parents. Parents set up goals for their child to achieve, the child has to achieve these mile stones set by their parents and if he fails to meet parental expectations he is made to feel as if he has betrayed them by not proving himself as brilliant as he was expected to be. This devastating stress of proving him brilliant enough to fulfill to dreams of his parents remains with the student throughout his student years, controls his feelings and actions and finally takes its toll on his life.

The intense pain of public humiliation: failure brings with it a stigma and feeling of humiliation. Students with a troubled conscience, when feel that they have failed themselves and have quashed the hopes of their parents, find it extremely painful to face their friends, family and peers. Dealing with this feeling of humiliation is beyond the capacity of these students who have never been independent or who have never known to be disobedient to their parents or teachers. These circumstances make these students feel like losers and failures; they can no more face their peers against whom they have competed, making the situation even more intolerable for the young susceptible minds.

What needs to be done?

A lot needs to be done on the part of parents, teachers, educational managers and state and society at large. We can no more afford to play the role of silent spectators, we as society will have to change the social conditions that are driving our children to kill themselves. Teachers need to take a special responsibility of liberating our students from the shackles of agonizing societal control being exercised in the name of parental expectations. We need to let our children be independent and allow them the room to set their own goals and pursue their own dreams. We will have to enable our children and teenagers to enjoy a happier and healthier life; we will have to save them from suicidal thoughts. we will have to make the following things happen.

Developing the capacity to cope with failures: students must have the capacity to deal with bitter realities of life. Schools must have student counseling facilities to provide guidance and motivation to students. As first step student counselors must be appointed in each district, their responsibilities must include providing guidance regarding career choice, stress management, dealing with performance anxiety, crisis handling and motivation. Similarly students’ access to life skills learning and motivational literature and videos must be ensured.

Allowing more independence in choice of subjects they want to study and careers they want to adopt: Pakistani children need greater independence and freedom of choice. Teenagers must be enabled to make their own decisions regarding their own lives and their choices and decisions need to be respected. Adults especially parents and teachers must stop imposing their own will upon children and schools must create an environment that encourages children to discover themselves, identify their strengths and weaknesses and unearth their hidden potentials. Our education system and schools instead of functioning like a factory to mass manufacture “information- reproducing robots” must rather focus on enabling students to become their own goal-setters and goal- achievers.

Adopting healthier lifestyles: the life of Pakistani students specially those belonging to middle class profession-oriented families is that of endless tribulation an agony, being forced to study and excel at subjects which may not interest them truly causes great hardships for teenagers at a tender age, adopting a healthier life style with proper space for games, hobbies, outings etc can strengthen young people to take up challenges with greater confidence. Rigid routines and robotic activities focusing only on memorization of facts do no good to them. Better performance and better grades follow, research has shown, if students are not overburdened and preoccupied with stressful daily routine of cramming texts and finishing home works.   

Parenting training for parents: parents need to be educated and trained about how they deal with their growing children. Parenting training is a must and some mechanism needs to be developed to educate parents to have realistic expectations from their children. Parents must be aware of natural inclinations and needs of their growing children. Instead of thrusting their own ideals, opinions and aspirations on children parents must create room for their children and help and motivate them to set up goals of their own. Tyrannical parenting and emotional blackmailing has no place in this age and time the sooner we realize the better it will be for our future generations. Positive motivation, encouragement and freedom of choice should be the core values of raising kids for our parents, these values can take us a long way in bringing up a happier and more successful generation.



     
                     To be continued...........