By Estephania Baez
The arrival of the internet marked the beginning of a new technological era that has enabled mankind to do things that were previously unimaginable. Desired information can be accessed in mere seconds, people can communicate from one corner of the world to the other, and its users can go beyond the physical plane and discover new electronic dimensions. However, while its positive impacts outweigh the bad, we must acknowledge that technology has also left men and women more exposed to the world through the screen, and has even led to death.
Social media such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and Snapchat are among the most popular platforms people use to share their daily lives, from what they ate that day to the birth of a new family member. Millions of pictures, videos and messages are posted by people every day; fact is, social media has gained such importance that some people have even posted the last day of their life.
In September, 2015, the U.S. Department of Health published a study showing that 12 out of every 100,000 people commit suicide each year nationwide, and in the last 3 years, 2% showed suicidal tendencies in their online posts. Also in 2015, 5 cases of teen suicide gained media attention, and the one thing in common among all the incidents was that the teen published a picture prior to taking their own life with a caption saying goodbye.
Another social media phenomenon that became hugely popular in the last 5 years was the concept of challenges. The most popular of these was the ice bucket challenge, where people had to dump ice water on themselves and call on another person to do the same within 24 hours as well as make a donation to the ALS Association – an organization that fights amyotrophic lateral sclerosis – raising a total of $31.5 million. But just as this challenge for a noble cause got millions of people to do it, there have been other challenges without a cause that have been downright dangerous. One such clear example was the fire challenge, which went viral in 2015, where people would pour alcohol on their chest, light it on fire with a match or lighter, and then post it online. The challenge left more than twenty teenagers from throughout the U.S. with second and third-degree burns; one of them was 11-year-old Devon Amason, who took on the challenge posed by his friends.
“It was like there was a thousand bees just stinging me all over. All of my skin off my chest started just flopping off, it was bad”, said Devon, who had to spend 15 days in the hospital being treated for his second and third-degree burns on his neck and chest.
Something else young people are doing, in this case regarding alcohol consumption, is to introduce it via their eyeball or women doing so through their vagina by means of alcohol-soaked tampons. This allows them to feel drunk without fear of their breath giving their condition away. Doctors assure that this can be harmful to the body, leading to infections and damages to the vaginal wall. Videos can be found on sites such as YouTube and Facebook showing teenagers performing this hazardous activity as part of a challenge.
The latest challenge, which did not go viral as the previous ones did but still caused a great deal of controversy and indignation among internet users, was the “Reto del Pasecito” (“line” challenge), popular among the higher echelons of Mexican society. It consisted on recording themselves while snorting cocaine, and then posting it challenging a friend to do the same.
Experts agree that all these activities are an indication of the fact that the younger generations are not only exposed to sex, alcohol and drugs at a much earlier age than in previous decades, but also feel an alarming need to gain notoriety in social media. Because their life is on display for any stranger to see anywhere in the world, the consequences can be far more serious than getting in trouble with their parents, thus psychologists urge parents and teachers to pay closer attention to the media platforms and websites their children are accessing.