When Blues Spark Red

A 17 year-old boy from Haryana committed suicide today. What makes this terrifying is that he is the latest victim of the ‘blue whale challenge’, an online suicide game started in Russia 4 years ago. It is indeed worrying that what there have already been more than a handful cases that have emerged from India alone since it was first reported in July.

What makes it dangerous is that, it seems to have caught on to the insecurities and trappings of a young mind to send it on to a self-destructive path, worldwide. In Russia, a teenage pleaded guilty to driving at least 16 teenage girls to suicide by psychologically manipulating them. He showed no remorse whatsoever and believed that his victims were a ‘biological waste’ and he was helping in cleansing society!

The challenge seeks young and vulnerable minds through social media and targets them over a period of over 1-2 months. It demands players complete 50 tasks in 50 days. It starts with easy tasks such as waking up at odd hours, watching horror movies, drawing a whale on a paper and then carving it with a blade on the skin, cutting one’s lips. Every task is to be filmed for proof. It makes it difficult for the child to leave the game halfway by threatening to harm the relatives or using any other information obtained about the victim. The final task is to take their own lives. The term Blue whale comes from beached whales which is linked to suicide. Reportedly the game has taken over 100 lives worldwide.

Impressionable minds especially between 13-17 years are most susceptible. The game targets lonely children and children with social anxiety disorders, sociophobia or any depressive tendencies. They often fail to see difference between reality and illusion and take these risks. While it is impossible to keep children away from internet and mobiles these days, it is very possible to know what they are up to and hence there are a number of steps that can be taken -

1.      Monitor children’s activity carefully on social media platforms. The kind of information children get online is vast. Parents should take baby steps while letting children use online media. This should be developmentally appropriate. They must keep their own devices password protected so kids don’t access any inappropriate content unknowingly. Monitor child’s social media behaviour. Is he spending more time online or on the mobile?  Is it impacting day to day functioning of the child. Internet usage of more than 4-5 hours is considered excessive.

2.      Parents should check on the children and their tendency to self harm. Depressed people might not seem depressed but may seem awkward or abnormally cheerful. The game cuts the victim further through the tasks. Is he more withdrawn or remarkably quiet? One of the tasks is to cut oneself off from everyone or Don’t talk to anyone whole day. Or wake up rather early at 4.30 am to wear them and break them. Maintaining Strong communication channels are extremely important, both at home and school.

3.      Perhaps the biggest challenge is that kids understand technology more than most adults in the country. But, even then there are couple of good softwares that help in keeping track of every activity of the child. Even at the wifi/router level, parents get an IT person to enable firewall and block certain words like ble whale, suicide, and other keywords. Here it is important to know the keywords cause there are several. It will do good for schools and parents to come together and help stay abreast of such trends as lives get more virtualised.

Each child device should be secure with comprehensive security product. One must monitor child online habits and give phased access to online media. It is impossible to ignore the pervasiveness of the technology and instead encourage them to use it to advantage. Probably, we need to fight adverse effects of technology with the benefits of technology: Fight the Evil with the Good.

Co-creating Education