The fake world of Facebook and Bebo: How suicide and cyber bullying lurk behind the facade of 'harmless fun'
Teenagers are addicted to online networking. Harmless fun? Not when cyber bullies drove 15-year-old Megan Gillan to kill herself. As an Archbishop condemns the craze, we examine the very real dangers of these often phoney friendships...
Anna Williams first began to worry about her daughter when she noticed how much time she was spending hunched over her computer.
'At first, I thought I was being old fashioned about it,' she says. 'Because I could remember my own parents saying "Look, it's sunny, why don't you go and play outside?" and not wanting to.
'But the more time Alice spent staring at the screen, the more uncomfortable it made me feel. It had become like an obsession - logging on to her pages on the social networking sites Stardoll and Bebo was the first thing she did in the morning and the last thing she did at night.
Schoolgirl Megan Gillan committed suicide after being teased on social networking site Bebo
'And the worst thing about it was that it didn't seem to be making her at all happy. She went from being bright and chatty and excited to listless and constantly bored. Her eyes would glaze over, her concentration span diminished and she seemed uninterested in everything except how many messages she'd got.'
When a teacher at parents' day also voiced concerns that Alice wasn't joining in as much in class, Anna decided not to give her daughter's online habits the benefit of the doubt.
'I imposed a ration on computer time. Perhaps it was just chance, but it seemed to work. Alice complained a lot at first - I was ruining her life, an awful parent, the usual stuff - but a few months later she seemed back to her bright self.'
Anna is not the first parent to voice concern about the effect of a virtual world of emails, texts and social networking sites on a new generation of children and teenagers.
This week Archbishop Vincent Nichols, the head of the Roman Catholic Church in England, joined the debate, warning that the trend towards creating an alternative reality of fragile virtual relationships leaves children and teenagers vulnerable when these broke down.
'They throw themselves into a friendship or network of friendships, then it collapses and they're desolate,' he says. 'It's an all-or-nothing syndrome that you have in an attempt to shore up an identity; a collection of friends about whom you can talk and even boast. But friendship is not a commodity, friendship is hard work and enduring when it is right.'
'Children have lost the ability to operate in a healthy way'
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
The Archbishop of Westminster also expresses concern that an over-reliance on cyber friendships was impeding children's ability to develop ways of interacting in the real world.
'We're losing social skills, the human interaction skills,' he says. 'Too much exclusive use of electronic information dehumanises what is a very, very important part of community life and living together.'
He also warned there are graver things at stake than a simple inability to function well in a real-life social environment. 'Often, a key factor in young people committing suicide is the trauma of transient relationships.'
His comments followed the news that 15-year-old Megan Gillan had committed suicide by taking a fatal overdose of painkillers after being the victim of cyberbullies who tormented her via the website Bebo.
Though two of the most popular social networking sites, Facebook and Bebo, have a minimum age requirement of 13, a recent study by an internet security company suggested some sites are unable to enforce their own rules.
The use of social networking is rife among schoolchildren: almost half of eight to 17-year-olds now have an online profile, according to a survey conducted by OFCOM last year.
'Teachers tell me that in any given class most of the eight and nine-year-olds spend a lot of time virtual socialising and that it's even beginning to appeal to those as young as six and seven,' says Sue Palmer, author of Toxic Childhood.
She points out that virtual friendships are no substitute for those forged in person. 'My research suggests that screen saturation at an earlier age means children don't develop the social skills and emotional resilience they need to cope with what is quite a challenging century.'
Claude Knights, director of the children's charity Kidscape, concurs: 'We speak to a lot of parents who say that the whole balance of their children's lives has gone. They've lost the ability to operate in a healthy way.
'When you talk online, there's no eye contact - you can't see someone's body language or hear the nuances in their voice.
The tragic teenager took a fatal overdose after becoming victim to cyberbullies
These are things we use to establish empathy with other people and they are being undermined.'
To children who are naturally shy and struggle to make friends in the classroom or playground, the internet can at first seem like a saviour, not least because of the ease with which apparent relationships can be forged.
'It's much easier to build a relationship with someone over the internet,' says social psychologist Dr Arthur Cassidy. But, he adds, such speedily-formed friendships are not firmly rooted in reality.
'Making friends on the internet relies on fantasy, it requires little cognitive effort, and it happens very quickly. It may also be secretive and guarded, so people feel very good about it when they're building it up.
'They actually invest as much emotion - and very intense emotion - in it as they would a real-life relationship. People also place highly unrealistic social expectations on a romantic relationship conducted over the internet.
Archbishop of Westminster Vincent Nichols has condemned the social networking craze
'But the relationship can also fall apart very quickly, taking with it everything the young person has invested in it. I always tell people that if you have a relationship online. then you have a relationship with a microchip.'
It is surely no coincidence that, despite the ready availability of tens of thousands of cyber-friends, among young people loneliness remains a major problem. The charity ChildLine counsels 5,500 children for loneliness every year.
'The reality is that the popularity such sites confer is a mirage,' confirms online agony aunt Hilary Freeman. 'One of the results of the social networking phenomenon is that quantity has replaced quality as the marker of friendship.
'It's not uncommon for members to list more than 500 "friends". Clearly, no more than a handful of these are true friends. The rest, if they're lucky, are acquaintances, but some will be rivals and others enemies, who wish them harm.'
Indeed. As the sad case of Megan Gillan shows, the online community might be partially based on fantasy. But it is certainly no Utopia.
My internet 'friend' became a virtual stalker
By GWYNETH REES
Friend or foe: People are giving up their privacy by joining social networking sites (file picture)
During my awkward youth, I had a stalker. He was the school geek, with terrible glasses, too-tight trousers and a serial-killer stare.
At first, his attention was strangely flattering - I copied his homework and he bought me chip butties. But then came the misspelt love letters, cringe-worthy poems, roses at home, songs he had written for me.
The final straw was when he turned up at my house with a cocker spaniel asking if I would like to stroke it.
So you can understand my reaction when - some 15 years later - I logged on to my Facebook account, scrolled through my friend requests and saw his face beaming back at me.
He had requested to be my 'friend' - meaning that he would be able to see my Facebook page on his computer and I would be able to see his - and had sent me a message: 'Just click yes, Gwyn.'
What could I do? I couldn't click yes, obviously. But could I really click 'no' - and tell him, once and for all, that I wasn't remotely interested in him?
In the end, after a week of cold sweats, I decided to ignore him.
So there he still is, his picture, with its manic grin, perpetually trapped in the no man's land of my undecided friend requests, like some kind of purgatory.
And that's why - in a nutshell - I hate Facebook. In my account - which I set up because journalists often need one for work - I have 63 ignored friend requests. And I don't even know half those people.
Last year, there was a girl who - clearly not impressed with my lack of communication - began 'poking' me. For those not familiar with Facebook, 'poke' is the word used to describe a short message one person sends to another to get their attention.
Then she 'super-poked' me, then she began sending virtual presents of cakes and flowers and hugs and kisses - all represented on my screen by gaudy little icons - in a bid to win me over.
This is a woman whom I briefly met at some adventure camp when I was 12. Why is being my friend so important to her now?
Ultimately, I don't see the point of being 'friends' on the net when we're not friends in real life.
I'm also deeply wary of the trend to share every aspect of your life - the belief that you must let the world know what you are doing right this instant. It started off with 'micro-blogging' site Twitter - which asks users 'What are you doing right now?' - but a recent redesign has seen Facebook jump on the bandwagon. The site now asks when you log on: 'What's on your mind?'
'People are putting their whole lives online - for anyone to see...'
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
The outcome is that as I write, I know Jane is unpacking from her holiday, Emma is eating Jaffa Cakes and thinking about getting a perm and Roseanne is at the bus stop.
But why do I need to know this? The trend for Facebook and other networking sites means that people no longer value their privacy. They put their whole lives online - for anyone to see.
For example, a bachelor friend had a date the other week. He'd been single for a long time, so it was exciting. But when I asked a mutual acquaintance how it went, he said: 'Have a look for yourself, the pictures are on Facebook.'
Yes - two hours after the date at Kew Gardens, they were up there.
Surely first dates aren't suitable material for Facebook (mine certainly aren't). The same goes for stag and hen nights.
Perhaps the most toe-curlingly embarrassing aspect of Facebook is its option to 'update your relationship status'. I've lost count of the relationships whose failure I've seen played out on Facebook.
How do you have a conversation with someone, knowing that yesterday their relationship status went from 'engaged' to 'single'?
On my Facebook account, I apparently have 111 friends.
In reality, I've got about ten really good mates. And if we ever run out of conversation, we can always natter about the oddballs from our childhood days who are harassing us on Facebook, trying to get back in touch.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1204062/The-fake-world-Facebook-Bebo-How-suicide-cyber-bullying-lurk-facade-harmless-fun.html#ixzz2M60n0fLT
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
