Our Children Are Important! Please read and share!
/As we all know social media is big in people's lives, from pre-teens to teenagers, and adults of all ages. Even though social media is used for many positive reasons, there are some downsides to it as well. There are also people who participate in social media that use the platforms to cause harm to others.
This brings me to the purpose of this email. I just wanted you all to be aware of the most recent challenge hitting social media and pre-teens and teens are participating in it. It is called the Blue Whale Challenge. My husband and I actually spoke with our children about this new challenge last night and I felt as if I needed to inform the Swirl Girl subscribers.
The Blue Whale Challenge is not new to social media because it's been around for about 2 years. It originated in Russia and is known as the online suicide challenge. It has now made it's way here to the United States!
Those who accept the challenge and actually participate will be given 50 tasks (or challenges) to complete in 50 days, which ultimately leads to them committing suicide on day 50. Some sources have stated that the curator of the 50 challenges actually let the participant know up front that they will die in 50 days and some just let the challenges intensify and finally inform the participate that they will kill themselves.
Some officials and researchers are still speculating whether the Blue Whale Challenge game is legitimate, or if it’s an online hoax. However, when the parents dig deeper into the suicide of their child, they find the blue whale, the blue whale challenge postings and hashtags, and the 50 day challenge itself. So according to the parents, this is very real!
According to CNN, a 16 year old from Atlanta, GA, committed suicide because of this challenge. There was also a 15 year old in Texas that committed suicide because of this same challenge. For more information on the challenge and the link to the story on cnn.com is here.
Below is one image of some of the challenges they are having the participants do. Please note, this is only one example.
Please familiarize yourself with the challenge in addition to what information I am providing you with now.
I wanted to bring awareness to this because suicide is growing so fast amongst children nowadays. It's so heartbreaking to hear the parents say they had no idea, there were no signs, and/or they would have never thought their child would kill themselves.
According to CNN, "Suicide is the third-leading cause of death among Americans age 10 to 14 and the second among people 15 to 34, according to 2015 statistics from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention."
Whether a hoax or not, let's protect our children and have the necessary talk with them about this challenge but suicide as well. Even monitoring our child(ren)'s social media even more because there are "sick" individuals out there preying on our babies and we have to protect them, prepare them, and equip them with the right mindset.
For the site where I got this image and more info on kids and social media, click here.
