The teenage suicide rate has almost doubled in eight years, it emerged yesterday, as ministers vowed to crack down on the internet giants accused of fuelling youngsters’ distress.
New figures show the rate among children aged between 15 and 19 has risen, despite falling for most other age groups. The provisional Office for National Statistics data for last year reveal that suicides are running at more than five in 100,000 among teenagers in England.
In 2010, the rate was just over three in 100,000. It comes after the grieving father of 14-year-old Molly Russell accused Instagram of ‘helping to kill her’ after the schoolgirl took her own life.
Ian Russell, 55, of Harrow, north-west London, said Molly had gone to bed in a good mood but decided to kill herself after looking at troubling images that night. He added: ‘I have no doubt that Instagram helped kill my daughter.’
The grieving father of 14-year-old Molly Russell (pictured) accused Instagram of ‘helping to kill her’ after the schoolgirl took her own life
Education Secretary Damian Hinds yesterday said social media firms had a ‘moral duty’ to act on harmful images hosted by their sites.
Pilot schemes to boost mental health will be launched in schools today, and Dame Sally Davies, the chief medical officer, will announce her findings that teenage suicides are linked with self-harm and spending more than four hours a day on social media apps.
She will tell technology giants such as Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat that they have ‘a duty of care’, clearing the way for a new regulator to press the firms to remove the worst material.
And she will call on parents to ban smartphones from the dinner table and before bedtime, and limit screen time to two hours at a time.
Ian Russell, 55, of Harrow, north-west London, said Molly had gone to bed in a good mood but decided to kill herself after looking at troubling images that night
Professor Louis Appleby, head of the national suicide prevention strategy, told The Sunday Times: ‘The danger is that we are presiding over a suicidal generation of young people and that young people have learnt self-harm as a way of coping.’ He said one in four teenage girls and one in ten boys were self-harming.
Ministers will publish a White Paper at the end of the month setting out new demands for social media firms to protect young people. Online firms will be ordered to shield their users from images of suicide, self-harm and bullying and told to remove references to suicide and self-harm methods.
Tech giants will have to sign up to new corporate social responsibility standards that will require them to remove material quickly and comprehensively. They will also face a new duty to set out how many complaints of online bullying, self-harm, trolling, rape and other threats they have received. If they refuse, or act too slowly, a new regulator will step in.
Professor Appleby’s three-year study into hundreds of youngsters who killed themselves found that a quarter had used the internet in a way that was suicide-related and one in 25 had visited websites where suicide was encouraged.
He warned that government thinking lagged behind the reality of how teenagers were using social media.
‘We have been looking at how much screen time youngsters have, which is a crude measure,’ he said. ‘It does not tell you anything about how young people are using screens.’
Professor Appleby said parents should worry less about children spending time on phones and more about what they were doing online.
‘One worrying example would be if they are sending each other self-harm images,’ he said. ‘That runs the risk of self-harm spreading as a kind of contagion. We should be worried about Instagram and the images that people pass to each other.’
TV presenter Esther Rantzen, who set up the Childline charity, said her own research linked the rise in suicide and self-harm to children’s use of the internet and social media. She added: ‘I am very concerned about the calls we are receiving. So many of them talk about being suicidal.
‘I am seeing a huge rise in unhappiness among our children and when I talk to our counsellors up and down the country and ask them why, they always say social media.
‘Young people are looking for comfort on the internet where there are people who feel the way they do. Tragically they are finding them and the solutions they are offering are coping mechanisms which are self-harm, even to the point of suicide.’
Facebook and Instagram said: ‘We have a deep responsibility to make sure people on Instagram and Facebook are safe. We do not allow content that promotes or encourages suicide or self-injury, and we will remove it as soon as we are aware.
‘We have started a full review of our policies, enforcement and technologies around suicide and self-injury content. While we conduct this review, over the past week we have had a team of engineers working round the clock to make changes to make it harder for people to search for and find self-harm content.’
Google said: ‘When people in need turn to the internet for advice and search for queries relating to suicide, we show the Samaritans’ 24-hour helpline number to connect people who are depressed, suicidal or in distress with the help and advice they need.’
- For confidential support, log on to samaritans.org or call the Samaritans on 116123
photo link
https://textbacklinkexchanges.com/rate-of-teenagers-taking-their-own-lives-in-britain-doubles-in-eight-years/
News Photo Rate of teenagers taking their own lives in Britain doubles in eight years
Advertising
You don’t have to pack away your dress just because you’re the wrong side of 20. These body-beautiful stars reveal their secrets to staying in shape and prove you can smoulder in a two-piece, whatever your age. Read on and be bikini inspired!
Kim says: “I am no super-thin Hollywood actress. I am built for men who like women to look like women.”
https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2019/02/03/22/9346280-6663323-The_grieving_father_of_14_year_old_Molly_Russell_pictured_accuse-a-11_1549231829029.jpg
Комментариев нет:
Отправить комментарий