On Christmas day a UK woman, Simone Back, announced her suicide plan on Facebook and no one stepped in to help. “Took all my pills, bye bye”, that was a message 1048 friends saw; a handful made comments, called her a liar and pretty much called her bluff. Only this time it wasn’t a bluff. Simone was found dead later that day. Her mother asked Simone’s Facebook friends to now leave her alone.
With the technology we have today you would think that a cry for help wouldn’t go unanswered. Facebook status updates go unread all the time but this one was read and ridiculed and chastised. Our social reach goes far beyond our physical abilities. I have friends in Hawaii that I’ve never met and family in Georgia that I haven’t seen in many years. But I was able to share holiday memories, birthday wishes and pictures of the kids with them both. Having this vast network of “friends” all over doesn’t really mean you have friends though. A lot of these friends are just numbers for your games, blogs, fanbase or cause. I’m guilty of this since I ask for a Facebook like or Twitter follow as giveaway entries. Does this mean all of those people are my friends; no. But I can say that I appreciate the effort to help build LookWhatMomFound…and Dad too! and love reading comments and updates and messages from everyone I’ve friended and liked or followed. I would hope that if I was down, depressed, excited, sad, happy or bored my online friends as well as my real life would be there to support or cheer me on.
Are We Really Friends
January 6, 2011 by 13 Comments
This hits home today.
Yesterday in Omaha, NE a teenage boy walked into his high school and gunned down two principals, killing one and the turned the gun on himself. He left a message on facebook, a sort of good-bye note and sent texts to his friends, telling them he was going to kill himself.
My husband is an asst. Principal. He deals with problems all day, some of which are brought to his attention via FB. He knows to not discount threats or pleas, especially after yesterday.
That is so sad about that woman. Thanks for reminding us to be “real” friends too.
thats terrible! People can be cruel 🙁
I still don’t do facebook and I’m not really into telling people what I am doing on an hourly basis. But I do genuinely care about the people I regularly follow. I pray for all of them when they are going through tough times. Social networking is a crazy thing. Most of it is done for gain I think. But there is still that core percentage that are friends. I hope you know I am here to support and cheer you on through comments and prayer.
People reached out to me when I deleted my blog to find out what the heck happened. It was touching, so I can’t understand that situation at all. I haven’t read much on it though.
That just makes me so sad. I would hope that if I were someone’s “friend” or follower and I saw something like that or even that they were just bummed with life that I’d try to encourage them or something!!
Thanks for sharing. I feel like I kind of know you, Rob and the kids because of the blog. I’ve never met you and probably never will, but it’s been good getting to know you here.
A very sobering post. I had not heard of this woman, but it pains me that her cries for help would have been met with derision. Sometimes all people need is one kind word.
I hope your day is blessed!
t
This is especially sad since there was proof that people read her pleas and even commented on them but nobody helped. I don’t have many close personal friends but I have a lot of Twitter “friends,” gals I’ve never met in real life and probably never will but most of the time if I tweet about being upset about something, I usually get an encouraging response. I hope that if I’m ever as sad as this girl was that somebody would reach out then too.
This is really sad and I know if I saw her post I would of tried talking to her and making her feel better.
I know they all just assumed she was just saying it because she had said the same thing before but they still shouldn’t of been so mean and ignored her cries for help.
It is really sad. I am selective about the people I “friend” on FB and if one of them posted something like that I would definitely reach out.
Gosh that is horrible. Although, I’m not on facebook often if I seen this from a friend I would definitely reach out. That breaks my heart.
When I was in highschool AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) was as popular as facebook is now. One night I was talking to one of my friends. Actually It was the middle of the night. He told me how depressed he was and how he wanted to take pills. He started acting strange. Our mutual friend was also awake and on AIM and we tried talking to him but we could tell we weren’t getting anywhere. We had tried calling his cell phone but he shut it off. We finally made the decision to call his house phone and wake his parents up and tell them to check on him. Luckily they were able to bust into his room (which he had locked himself in) before he was able to harm himself.
That night he was so mad at us for getting his parents involved. In the end I think it brought the 3 of us closer. I often wonderd how many others he may have been talking to online that night.
I would rather have someone be mad at me for getting people involved than not have them around at all.
I think with facebook / twitter people get really into the numbers of friends but in reality they probably don’t know the vast majority of the people personally. I too give extra entries for following me on facebook and twitter but I would like to think that if I noticed someone being extra down that I would try to talk to them or help them find help. I remember when Karissa (Prissy Green) passed away wondering if any of her posts or tweets ever hinted that she was so depressed.
How sad that someone didn’t take heed and even try to help this woman. I’ve never posted about something that serious, but I’ve been lucky in that I get encouraging comments when I’m having a bad day or am upset. People need to be more compassionate. Sometimes it seems that’s a lost concept.