Anthony Hernandez

11/18/15
English 114A
Final Social media and suicide
Media has experienced a large amount of coverage throughout the years and undergone
many serious ways in which people of all types of backgrounds can communicate. People used
the radio as a source of entertainment in earlier years and have drastically evolved into using
more advanced mechanisms to their advantage including what was known as a super computer
ten years ago. Now we have these so-called super computers that were once the size of a huge
room that can now fit into the palm of our hands and in our pockets. As much as the overall
intention of these extremely smart devices was and is to benefit our society and overall connect
us globally, that is not always the case due to a number of problems that have occurred recently
in more modern times. Social media, a add on associated with our new connection known as the
internet, has proved to be a huge problem within our community because of large amounts of
kids, teens and even adults bullying each other through these new sources of social activity that
our now part of our daily lives. I believe that social media is better off as a tool for people to
show love to each other but is mainly used for ostracizing, bullying and other unfashionable
manners that can ultimately affect a persons life in a negative way.
Social media allows people to send blackmail threats online and here are some examples
on how that can be used. In one case, Amanda Todd was one day video chatting and flashed a
boy online on a webcam after receiving various compliments that made her feel good about
herself. Almost a year later she started to receive blackmail threats from that same guy telling her

if she doesnt put on a show for him he will send the pictures to her families and friends if she
did not comply with his demands. After her naked photos went viral, a chronological order of
events occurred in which she faced various ways of kids online ostracizing her and calling her
names such as a slut through the internet and even in person. She attempted to move schools
three different times but the same kids that were sending her threats ended up creating more and
more pages so that it followed her all the way through those three different schools. In the end,
she made a video of herself telling her story with flash cards that went viral and soon died for
drinking bleach and committing suicide after she could only take so much. This is a perfect
example of how the negative influences of social media can influence the outcome of peoples
life and affects them to (in some cases) an extreme extent in which they take their own lives and
do something bad. Although the argument can be made that people try to support each other
through the use of social media, it can be said that the lives lost can ultimately outweigh the
attempts at first of people trying to help others on these social media accounts. More and more
people face these struggles every day and although there are alternatives to finding help online,
not many people will look for this because of how negative social media influence has already
caused.
Another point to my argument can be said that suicide can not only be influenced by
internal judgments but can also be influenced by environmental factors such as hate cites that
scrutinize a social group or person. DD Luxton describes in his article that, Suicide is a
considerable public health problem; more than 30000 suicide deaths in the United States and
nearly 1 million suicide deaths worldwide occur every year, which is a statistic that ultimately is
anti-social media because of the large amounts of lives that are being lost at an extremely high
rate. Environmental factors can considerably be a huge enforcer into the role that bullys play

online and on social media cites. This signifies that things such as gender roles, larger ideas that
enforce negatively on a persons life and even small things you would talk about at school. These
ideas can influence on what people might think is right and wrong in which they can press this
idea onto others and make this a cultural bias online. For example stereotypes can be placed
online and as soon as groups find it funny, others will conform to this idea of a stereotype being
funny. As I said in my earlier example, there can be large hate groups such as there was for
Amanda Todd in which kids started to make hate cites about her and started to conform to the
idea of the names that were being thrown at her. Amanda Todds story is far too common and can
also be used as an example to enforce the idea of environmental factors and cultural biass being
pressed on social media to younger kids.
It can also be said that it overall impacts an entire community and not just a single person
in the aspect of social media related suicide. Social media is a really big complicatio on why
teens are committing suicide lately and is more of a public health concern rather than just a
concern for the people and families that face this sort of threat in their groups of family or
friends. It can be a public health risk because of its large impact on groups of people, for
example, a social media bully can bully a large group of people in different communities that
specifically target and make fun of a wide array of people who might listen to the same music or
play the same game for example. There are millions of groups that can be targeted such as a
general ethnicity, gender, group of students etc. These kinds of targets can ultimately affect a
larger group of people rather than just the single people that a group primarily targets. If a social
media bully posts a picture making fun of gothic kids, then there is a possibility that this picture
can go viral and affect more than just a single person. This kind of bullying reflects badly on
social media because it only takes one perpetrator to affect a large amount of kids negatively.

My final point can be said that social media related suicide is a huge impact because of
how involved with it we are every single day of our lives. A short article about a young teenage
girl that committed suicide in Ireland states that, Since the youngsters these days are in front
of their computers and smartphones almost all the time, it is easy for them to get involved in
cyber bullying, and in the case of it becoming too real, bullying stories are easily turning into
suicide stories, which points out the obvious in which we are very much attached to our
smart phones, computer, tablets every day and is now becoming a traditional practice to
connect using social media. Although there are benefits of being in social media by staying
connected, there is not always good ways of being connected but can also be connection for
the wrong reasons in which both of these young girls faced. Amanda Todds story and this
young 13 year old from Ireland can be said that there are not always good experiences
associated with this new level of connection but can also be threatful, hateful and non-loving
all the way through.
In conclusion, I believe that social media can ultimately affect many peoples lives
negatively and is very much a public health concern and generally an efficient way to ostracize
and make fun of others. Social media allows people to connect from across the globe but that
doesnt mean its always necessarily a good thing but can also be a bad thing in which I
explained in my examples about Amanda Todd and other young kids from across the globe.
There are environmental factors that also play a big part in this role of social media related
suicide and is something you must ultimately stay away from.

Work Cited:
http://nobullying.com/stories-of-7-teen-suicides-because-of-ask-fm-bullying/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKFr3TNMJ4k