Sunday, January 18, 2015

Sucide by Young People, 'Where are we going Wrong?

The topic that I am blogging-on is a topic of psychology whereas I am an Engineer by training. However, I think life experiences and being a parent entitles me to give my views.

Coming to the topic, very often we come across reports of untimely deaths of young people in various incidences like bike crash, car crash, stunts on board a Mumbai Local (specific to Mumbai),etc. They are beyond  control to a large extent. However, when the news of a suicide of a young person is reported, this unwarranted loss of life makes me very sad. I wonder, why did that child take such a extreme step.

The answer that comes to my mind is that probably the child felt helpless, trapped, back to the wall and without any other recourse. May be. What is not obvious is that how did the child, particularly the ones, who had every one in his family to fall back on, reach this state that he / she had to take his / her life?

There are many factors that have changed in the society from my own earlier times around 1978. Many new facets have got introduced into young person's life. Some are for good and some are for not so good.

The sociologists and psychologists have their own theories based on science. However, the reports of suicides, sometimes even on petty things like Cyber bullying, etc makes me think of  one major factor (though there may be many more). That factor is, lack of physical connect.

Today's child is fully wired. He has Internet, mobile, play station and what not. New age parents, on one hand, bring in pressures of competition at a very young age and on the other, providing more and more gadgets to children. End result is the societal connect and also the family connect is getting lost.

The children no more play out doors (very few do play), a very important factor in developing a healthy personality as also a healthy body (and then you hear unfortunate news of some child dying on the play ground because his / her PT teacher made that child run some rounds of the play ground). The physical connect that is so important to develop warmth among people and competitive sprite (this, in a gradual manner as the child grows) comes from interacting and playing together in a non school surrounding (at home or in the housing society or lane).

Also the virtual reality that has engulfed all of us but particularly children is another reason. The child may have 400 friends on FB but his physical, real friends may be withing first nine digits of the number system. He / She may be chatting to 20 people on Whatsapp but might not have spoken to parents, except few sentences, for some days.

Virtual reality is only that, Virtual. It can not replace the touch, feel and the sounds coming from living beings like real physical friends, parents, class mates etc. The parents also are to be blamed. Most compensate for their lack of time by adding some more gadgets and thus some more virtual reality in to child's life. If only they give more of their time to the child and less to making tons of money! After all one many make tons, may be on top of his organization but the years lost and the the childhood killed in those years can not be brought back. Childhood is priceless but it gets lost.

Even the grown up children of 25 or above age are committing suicide. The reason that comes to my mind is yet again lack of connect with parents and society and therefore lack of confidence in getting suitable response / support to their anxiety / worries from society. Virtual world cannot provide that comfort, it has to come from physical world.

The young ones deserve better from our generation. We had all the fun, played out doors, had tons of actual friends. Virtual is here to stay because technology has made us its slave, but time has come that all of us reserve and provide some physical connect to our children and encourage them also to develop healthy, open relationship with their parents and friends in physical domain.

If they are committing suicide, it is our generation which has to take large part of the blame. Question is, is anybody listening?  




1 comment:

  1. Not just technology, its also the increased expectations, wanted the best, lack of acceptance for failure etc which drive younsters to suicide.

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