Kristie McNealy, MD

In the past year, at least 6 teenagers and one 27-year-old have killed themselves in apparent copycat suicides in and around the small town of Bridgend, South Wales. Most recently, 17-year-old Tasha Randall, a young girl with plans for the future and a large circle of friends, took her own life in her bedroom. Two days later, two of Tasha’s 15-year-old acquaintances also attempted suicide.

While copycat suicides are a well-known phenomenon, these cases are interesting because the young people in question were apparently connected to one another through the social networking website Bebo. They left tributes on the Bebo profiles belonging to the teens that preceded them in death, and their friends have built memorial sites, where others come and leave tributes on a “remembrance wall.”

Traditionally, copycat deaths have been seen after media coverage of a suicide, but since teens get more of their news and information from the web than from traditional news sources, the impact of social networking sites poses an interesting danger. This isn’t the first time that social networking sites have played a part in the suicide of a teenager. The social networking site MySpace was used in a cruel prank that ended in the suicide of 13-year-old Megan Meier in 2007. In 2005, another teen posted a suicide note on his MySpace page, and went on to kill himself minutes later. Dozens of people went on to memorialize him on his page.

Parents worry (rightfully) about their children being lured away by sexual predators and other monsters on the internet. Now we have yet another worry. Apparently, teens are now being lured into suicide by the perceived notoriety of being memorialized by their friends on the internet.

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