Current Event 1



Tysen Benz, a 11 years old guy committed suicide after being victim of a social media prank that consisted on his own girlfriend posting some messages saying she would end her own life, after believing it was real, the guy started to post similar messages but nobody tried to stop him even then, later he was found by his mother hanging by the neck in his room.
The girl is being charged with telecommunication services/malicious use in Marquette County. Victim's mom says that friends of the girl were involved in the prank too.  This case clearly shows the negative effect of social media use, in the current event it goes to its ultimate and most fatal result, the death of a person. Who would imagine that a guy so young would be capable of ending his own life? Unfortunately in recent years the amount of young people committing suicide has increased. Nowadays it is the second cause of death for people 15-24 years old (Drapeau & McIntosh in Megan Meier Foundation, 2016).
A particularity of this event is that instead of being a bully and its victim relation, Tysen and the unnamed girl were in a romantic relationship, even though the dynamic of their relationships is unknown, it is clear that a misuse of social media took place. It is common to know of people who complain about their significant other not giving them enough attention trough social media and that can cause real problems in the relationships such as jealousy or becoming overly attached turning one or even both of the parties stalkers of the one they swear to love.

Is really disturbing to think that now we won’t only have to be cautious with the ones who don’t like us over social media because even the ones that like us and we are friends with or we are dating can also be the ones who commit acts that can affect us to the point that leads to cases like Tysen Benz.
Finally I quote Tysen’s mom as she points out a reality: "Social media harassment, bullying and pranking is a huge issue…" "The way it's used nowadays, kids are desensitized to social media and it really does hurt people."
News Article:
Williams, C. (2017, April 7). 11-Year-Old Boy Killed Himself After Girlfriend Faked Suicide, Mom Says. Time U.S. Retrieved from: http://time.com/4731231/tysen-benz-death-social-media-prank/
References:
Megan Meier Foundation (2016). Suicide. Retrieved from: https://www.meganmeierfoundation.org/suicide-statistics.html

Comentarios

Publicar un comentario

Entradas más populares de este blog

My Views

Nowadays due to access to technology has become easier in many parts of the world the way we live our lives has changed as well as how we communicate with others. One particular area, and the one this paper is focusing on is relationships. A new element in social relationships introduced by the increment of the amount of people with internet access is social networking,previous research has shown that Facebook is the platform most commonly used and it addition to it use to keep in contact with others it also works as a source to monitor what the actual significant other of someone is up to which is been related to have negative outcomes like a high amount of intrusion in the person’s life (Clayton, Nagurney & Smith, 2013). Even though the view from younger generations about the use of social media impact on their relationships is mostly positive  (Lenhart, Anderson & Smith, 2015) a high use of social media platforms such as Facebook has been linked to major negative out...
Leer más

For Further Research

Imagen
If you want to know more of this topic, here I will let you three cool pages where you can find more about. Teens, Technology and Romantic Relationships: From flirting to breaking up, social media and mobile phones are woven into teens’ romantic lives by Pew Research Center. This is a series of studies that focus in more aspects and with a scientific approach to the use of social media and mobile phones and the effect on romantic relationships. The amount of information provided from this organization is quite interesting and pleasing to read if you like the facts more than opinions. http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/10/01/teens-technology-and-romantic-relationships/ Gemma Styles This is a columnist from The Brief with some post related to the use of technology and its impact to social relationships. It is written more in a day-to-day communication way rather than from a scientific approach. http://www.thedebrief.co.uk/author/gemma-styles Social Media Impact...
Leer más

INTRODUCTION: EFFECT OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS

Imagen
What is the purpose of this blog? Well, the main idea is to give a look to social relationships and the effects the use of social media might have on them. Being myself someone who has a kind of love/hate relationships with social platforms it seems as a topic worth to talk about considering the huge amount of users all around the world. Nowadays even children are active users of platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat in their phones when back in my days (kinda make me feel old using that phrase) we would be glad of having a phone that could at least play mp3 files meaning that most of the use for that phone would be short messages and mostly for parental monitoring in whatever place we would be spending the afternoon. Being social actually meant meeting in real life with some people and not just posting every single meal we are about to eat. Not only social media use have changed how childhood goes on these days, it has done it over every life chapter, being a...
Leer más