Experts: Social Web sites can magnify impact on troubled youngsters

The soaring popularity of social networking sites like Facebook can put an unwanted and potentially harmful magnifying glass on teenagers thinking about hurting themselves, according to experts in the field.Dr. Mark Schechter, the chairman of the department of psychiatry at the North Shore Medical Center in Salem, said this week that doctors and other mental health professionals are “just starting to get our minds around” exactly how social networking sites impact teens and others dealing with mental illness or thinking about suicide.?There are obvious negatives, the immediacy with which kids now deal with everything and see everything online so everybody can read it and it?s humiliating,” Schechter, who is also an instructor in psychiatry at Harvard University, said. ” ? It takes what used to happen in a classroom and makes it exponentially worse ? “His comments come in the wake of last week?s apparent suicide of Saugus High School teenager Felix Sacco, who police say jumped off an overpass onto Route 1 after leaving the high school.A acquaintance of Sacco?s told the The Daily Item Monday that Sacco had been the victim of bullying before he took his own life.In addition, Rutgers University student Tyler Clementi committed suicide last week, allegedly after two of his classmates posted on the Internet a live stream of him having sex with another man.Debbie Helms, program director for the Samaritans of Merrimack Valley, says social networking sites can “play a major role” in harming teens dealing with mental-health issues, not in terms of causing the problem, but in “broadcasting it.”Helms believes any parent – not just parents of teens dealing with mental-health issues – should be familiar with what they?re doing online, and if they?re being targeted through cyberbulling.?I would tell parents if they really want to know what?s going on with their child they should be checking out all those social networking sites,” Helms said. ” ? I have this arrangement with my kids that they can go online, but they also know I can go online and check what they?re doing because I have all their passwords.”Helms said if someone who?s been active on social networking sites suddenly stops communicating with their friends online, it may a sign they?re suffering from some mental illness.?There are some positive qualities to social networking,” Helms said. “If someone is so depressed that they?re not going online anymore, that?s a sign. There?s this whole thing that parents think you?re invading your child?s privacy, but saving a life is worth upsetting your child.”Carrie Kimball Monahan, spokesperson for the Essex County District Attorney?s Office, said cyberbullying is “very prevalent in schools and communities.”?It adds a whole new dimension to bullying then when we were growing up ? ,” she said.Kimball Monahan said there can be legal consequences for teens for cyberbullying, but there are “much broader social and emotional consequences.”?I think when you look at what gets traded back and forth in a text, it goes so much further (than face-to-face bullying), it seems so much more vicious,” she said. “I think it?s because you?re not looking at someone?s face.”Still, Schechter believes there are some positives to social networking sites for troubled teens.?There?s also an immediacy of connecting to friends ? some of whom you might not see all the time,” Schechter said. “So instead of sitting in your bedroom alone, you can be talking to friends.”But Schechter said it?s important to work on guidelines for respectable use, so teens dealing with mental-health problems or thinking about suicide aren?t further burdened by online attacks.Schechter said while it is still relatively uncommon for a teenager to take their own life, it is not uncommon for teens to think about suicide or even try to hurt themselves.?Suicidal thoughts are actually quite common in high school kids,” Schechter said. “? Seventeen percent of high school kids have had significant th