The modern-day equivalent of the poison pen letter a danger for teens

Our use of social media has come under sharp focus in the past few days with the death of 13-year-old Erin Gallagher at her home at Ballybofey, Co Donegal. This young girl, a child really, took her own life on Saturday following reports that she was the subject of cyber-bullying. In a post on ask.fm, she alleged that she had been bullied online in the period leading up to her death. Tragically, she had been babysitting her four-year-old brother when she took her life. The shock of this event is summed up by former government minister Jim McDaid who was the doctor on call when Erin's body was found by her mother. He told the Irish Times of his "absolute shock" after attending the scene. "You see some things in this job and I have dealt with some very sad cases....but this was just a beautiful wee girl, a child. Of all the experiences in life, this must be the worst I have seen." He said that when Erin's mother returned to the family home after being out, she found her daughter dead on the stairs and her four-year-old son wandering around. "Another sister (Shannon), who is a bit older than Erin, was at a friend's house at the time. So she had to be contacted and told that her wee sister was dead. It is just tragic, it is awful," Dr McDaid said. If the allegations of cyber-bullying are found to be accurate (and at this stage we have to suspend judgement while the gardai investigate), we have the return of what used be known as "the poison pen letter"; in effect, the pen, paper and ink version of the malicious social network "post". The anonymous poison pen letter - an unpleasant missive making unpleasant, abusive or malicious statements - was in active use in Ireland up to the advent of the mobile phone (for texts) or internet social networking sites. The letters were meant to be used to upset and traumatise victims. And they did. More terror was added if a bullet casing was enclosed in the envelope. Of course, many of the malicious comments made on social networking sites are not anonymous - it seems some people don't mind being identified as being bullies. In the particular case of the Facebook founders, young Mark Zuckerberg and his college roommates and fellow Harvard University students Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McColum, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes never thought that their social media invention would be used to such malign effect. When they set it up, the website's membership was limited to Harvard students but later expanded to other colleges around Boston. It eventually opened up to all high school students in the US, and later to anyone aged 13 and over. However, outside the control of the founders, there are up to 7.5 million children under 13 with accounts, and five million under 10, thus violating the site's terms of service. To balance this, it has to be admitted that social networking has caught the public imagination. Its use continues to soar throughout the world and, of course, those who use the forum will attest to its emissions of warm and friendly feeling generated by loving messages and photographs of all kinds. The downside of social media contact is highlighted in its abuse by a minority of users. Unfortunately, this has led to the deaths of young Erin Gallagher (and the death of another teenager Ciara Pugsley who took her own life in Co Leitrim following online bullying incidents). The possible abuse of these sites has to be taken seriously, especially by the parents of impressionable and vulnerable teenagers. In mourning the untimely and unnecessary death of these children, we ought to shake ourselves out of our complacency. Parents have a clear duty to see that the use of social media by young people is properly supervised for their protection. As we have discovered in the last few days, their very lives may be at stake.