I support you with your choice to end your life..

This week, our course has been held strcitly online and has dealt with the importance of online communities. We reviewed the idea of what a community is, what defines a virtual community, and the extremities of virtual community addiction. These articles put into light the importance of virtual communities to many individuals coming from various areas of interest. Some of these communities dealt with sports, networking, TV shows, and much more. Unfortunately, though, not all of these online communities are used for positive reasons. I investigated 3 types of extremely serious online communities that not only provide people with a necessary "sense of belonging" and consistency, but also the "support" to become anorexic, bulimic, or even carry out suicide.

According to Butcher, Mineka, and Hooley (2007) these communities do not encourage sufferers to seek treatment, but rather they provide information and inspiration to those who want to keep harming themselves. Sufferers of these conditions communicate with other individuals on effective ways to lose weight, purge, and succeed in suicidal attempts. Virtual communities such as these have even developed ways to recognize members outside of the internet by creating, for example, bracelets which resemble their involvement and support of in these virtual communities (Dragonfly beaded bracelets, Red=Anorexic, Blue=Bulimic) http://blogs.healthcare.com/medusa/2008/06/03/pro-ana-pro-mia-the-red-blue-bracelets/). Not only this, these virtual communities also sell t-shirts and other merchandise to encourage their members. These objects help to bring the individuals together as a unit and make them recognizable outside of the comfort of the website.

I chose to address these communities based primarily on the frequency of interaction, support and information exchange they share. Try visiting a website such as http://community.livejournal.com/proanorexia/2005/10/26/, and you will find a disturbingly large amount of young girls posting about methods of purging, and ways to stay strong in your plan to quit eating. Take, for example, a post by one user encouraging fellow members to begin a fast called "I'm going to get skinny even if it kills me." Along these same lines, pro-suicide websites help to encourage suicidal individuals, telling them it truly is their best option. With support from a community sharing these life altering views, individuals feel they are making the right decision. The major problem with these websites is their ability to provide users with a sense of validation (Butcher, Mineka, and Hooley, 2007). Fortunately, though, attempts are being made to abolish these online communities. Officials say that these websites lure in vulnerable individuals who are then assisted in acts such as suicide. If the hosts of these communities are found, they can be prosecuted for murder or harm as it is illegal to aid, or counsel anyone to kill themselves. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7341024.stm) On the contrary though, as we are all aware, the internet is difficult to patrol and a majority of these sites are simply going “underground” and becoming more difficult to access.

These sad and unfortunate examples of online communities are not meant to be disturbing, but rather to bring to light the strength of online communities and the things they can often drive people to do under the wrong circumstances. We can only hope that such communities will eventually come to an end before many more innocent lives do first.