Fourteen-year-old Manpreet from Mumbai took a picture from the terrace of his building bidding goodbye to all his friends and close ones posted it online and leaped to his death. Yes, it was clearly suicide, but the bizarre reason behind this drastic step shocked everyone. He became the first official suicide case in connection with the ‘Blue Whale' online game, a task based game played through the Russian social media platform VKontakte, where the player is provided 50 tasks over a period of 50 days. The last task is to document the player's suicide. Originated in Russia the founder has been arrested and is behind bars but the game daring teenagers still remains active.
With over 130 suicides reported to the dare in Russia alone and scores across the world, the question that shatters one's conscience is what role are the parents and guardians playing? Are they not monitoring their children? It is nothing less than a trend today that as soon as kids turn into teenagers they are hooked onto social networking and the web world, thanks to the parents who gift them these devices to access the net. But is that it? Give them what they want because the parent has an obligation of fulfilling their children's needs? There is an emotional, psychological and sentimental void that a teen encounters growing up. Parents have to thus be alert as to what their children are involved in, lest it ends up costing their life.
With over 130 suicides reported to the dare in Russia alone and scores across the world, the question that shatters one's conscience is what role are the parents and guardians playing? Are they not monitoring their children? It is nothing less than a trend today that as soon as kids turn into teenagers they are hooked onto social networking and the web world, thanks to the parents who gift them these devices to access the net. But is that it? Give them what they want because the parent has an obligation of fulfilling their children's needs? There is an emotional, psychological and sentimental void that a teen encounters growing up. Parents have to thus be alert as to what their children are involved in, lest it ends up costing their life.
