On Social Media, a lot of inappropriate content is posted without any problem. Even though there are restrictions that are supposed to limit sensitive and disturbing content and possibly block the author, there are still a lot of very concerning posts that does not belong on social sites which are available for children. For instance, posts about suicide, murder, self-harm and explicit sexual content. As for the adults, sensitive posts might not be as harmful as they are for children and teenagers. The problem is that these topics are being romanticized, making adolescents think self-harm and suicide are 'cool'. Unfortunately, this may lead to fatal consequences, as they want to try it themselves in order to be more 'likable'. For instance, fourteen-year-old Molly Russel from Harrow in north-west London, took her own life in November 2017. While investigating the suicide, plenty of distressing material about depression and suicide were found on her Instagram account. Her father, Ian Russel, said that he believes social media was partly to blame for Molly´s death. After this event, Instagram said that their policies does not allow content that promotes or glorifies self-harm or suicide anymore and that they will remove content of this kind. But as i said earlier, the system might not be perfect yet and a lot of inappropriate content is still online. In the website guardian.com, Michael Savage said: “Research shows that people who are feeling suicidal use the internet to search for suicide methods. Websites provide graphic details and information on how to take your own life. This cannot be right. Where this content breaches the policies of internet and social media providers it must be removed.” I agree with this statement, I think sites should put even more focus on improving the age restriction and the content control, as it can save many lives. However, authors should be also reasonable about what are they going to post and think about their audience.
Hey Linda! Thank you for the informative article! I also think that romanticising mental disorders has became an issue in today's society. Especially when anyone can access these data, even minors, and some people and/or influencers may present mental disorders as something "desirable".