A Florida teen streamed his suicide on Justin.tv earlier this week (ABC news story) and 185 people watched as he overdosed. At first I thought it was a hoax, but it appears to be true. It appears that people in the chat of the stream were encouraging him to do it as it was unfolding. I find this story so sad. I wonder what backlash this will have on some of these newer forms of social media. It reminds me as a youth worker that being involved where teens are online is important.
What are your thoughts? Do we need to encourage are kids to stay away from social media? Or should we be taking an interest in what kids in our groups are up to online?
Any time I talk to youth volunteers or parents, I encourage them to get on line and find out where their kids hang out. Join them, without being intrusive. Don’t try to be “hip”, just show interest. The kids will like that you are interested and you get to keep an eye on things.
Any time I talk to kids about facebook, myspace, or whatever, I make sure they know that I care about them and I want them to be safe. I extol them to be careful and never ever ever post personal information, even to “friends”.
It’s a scary world we live in, for sure.