Social media puts a filter on death
There’s the dog filter that makes someone into a puppy. The flower crown filter gives a everyone a princess look. Chrome makes a picture more vibrant. XX Pro makes the subject more tan.
Filters distort photographs and make them look a little less like reality.
When “Cute!” can appear 20 times under a post, but “Rest in peace <3” can too, the social media mask is put on death.
But this is not just another story about suicide.
A phone sat ringing on the Golden Gate Bridge November 29, 2005. A woman picked it up. A group of students were looking for the owner of the phone, their classmate John William Skinner who hadn't come to school that day.
Concerned, they tried to call him, but it was too late. Skinner had jumped.
“He had been with me just the day before and said ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’ Other students were out with him the evening before. They had been talking about college applications and where they were going to school. Nothing indicated he had any intention of doing this,” said Gail Langkusch, his AP Language and Composition teacher and a current substitute teacher.
This was over a decade ago, but the experience is in a similar vein as suicides today. Skinner had said his last goodbyes and left his possessions to his closest friends in a series of text messages.
There have been three high school student suicides within a 20-mile radius of Carlmont in the last six months, and in all cases, Carlmont students have witnessed social media desensitization of the nature of suicide.
Priscilla Chiu was a sophomore at Aragon High School when she hanged herself on April 22, 2017.
“When [Priscilla and I] were friends it was before social media. Our bond was out of this world,” said Briana McDonald, a junior at Carlmont.
When Chiu and McDonald went to different high schools, they didn’t have as much contact.
“I still kept in touch with her but we didn’t have as close a bond. When I [saw] her on Instagram or Snapchat I would think she’s having an amazing life,” said McDonald. “I figured that she had recovered, but only being connected through social media I’d see all the good things and only that she was good and ok, so hearing that she had passed away after seeing all the good in her life was a shock.”
Social media had veiled the true experiences of a suicidal teen, so it limited the ability of others to reach out.
“Social media has a way of showing only the positives without showing the negatives. People observe that and think they’re the only ones struggling. It’s not an accurate reflection of other people’s lives,” said Kristin Vernon, a guidance counselor at Carlmont.
According to CNN, teens spend seven to nine hours a day on social media, creating a clear pathway for any information delivered through a screen.
Social media can spread many things, like positive thoughts and messages, but it also fudges reality. It hides signs of suicide and endangers personal connections that could recognize those signs.
“Social media is like this giant filter on everyone’s lives. I feel like it’s fake and not genuine, so super disturbing news didn’t feel real to me because I found out through social media,” said McDonald.
One follower could see the death of distant friend on Instagram and get over it in two days while another follower who was practically family to the victim can take months to get over the trauma. When it’s through a screen people don’t really see who is on the other side.
Alec Turner, a senior at Gunn High School, committed suicide on Aug. 15, 2017, the second day of school.
“It was absolutely shocking,” said Avery Lythcott-Haims, a junior at Gunn. “The day after was somber and quieter, but this isn’t the first time a suicide has happened at Gunn.”
She posted a message of love on her Snapchat to support fellow students as an outside observer. Many others posted, too.
However, social media interactions have consequences, including the inability to fully understand the intentions of others, which can cause conflict and confusion when it comes to sensitivity.
Deandre Minor, a Carlmont senior and Chiu’s ex-boyfriend, said, “People were proclaiming they knew [Priscilla] when they were never there for her. I respected everyone that showed their love for her but I also saw it as only missing her now that she’s gone forever.”
That sentiment carried through to other recent suicides.
Madyson Weiss was a sophomore at Hillsdale High School who hanged herself in August of 2017.
“We were best friends,” said Mahara Kashanian, a sophomore at Carlmont who also observed positive thoughts being sent Weiss’s way through social media.
“I think the comments [posted on social media about Weiss] were really thoughtful. She would’ve appreciated and loved the things people were saying about her. I also know there’s a lot of people who wouldn't have posted stuff about her when she was alive. Now that she’s passed away everybody suddenly cares,” said Kashanian.
Many agree that the internet isn’t a necessarily a place to go looking for reality.
According to CNN, one in four people lie on Facebook, which is about 320 million people lying to their friends and families about some aspect of their lives through social media.
“[With social media] you’re living two different lives and you cannot make those two lives anything that’s meaningful for you,” said Langkusch.
People scroll fast, whether a feed contains slime or suicide. It all comes through the same screen and, as a result, hurtful, disturbing, and personal news belongs to hundreds of Instagram followers, Snapchat users, and Facebook friends. This impersonal interaction and overall detachment leads to a lack of the full appreciation it takes to mourn the loss of another person’s life and have real relationships at all.
According to researchers at University of California-San Diego, humans receive about 34 gigabytes of information through media per day. This is equal to over 100,000 words, plus images and videos. Just as this amount of information could overload a laptop, it floods the brain. This can literally hinder a person’s ability to feel.
“I first found out [about Chiu’s passing] through social media. It almost felt like a sick joke,” said McDonald. “She was my first best friend. We did everything together. Having to find out about her passing through [social media] was very hard.”
When harsh realities of life pop up on Instagram feeds, it’s a reminder for some that tragedy doesn’t always happen on the other side of the country or across the world. It happens in other friend groups, neighboring school districts, and down the street.
According to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and the CDC, suicide remains the 10th leading cause of death in the United States, is the second leading cause of death among people 15-34 years old, and the rates for people under the age of 20 are slowly going up.
Carlmont is trying to help limit suicides and cope with them. Almost every type of health hotline a student could potentially need is on the back of student IDs. The SOS program is open to all students every day. An entire council of ASB has the sole goal to make students feel included. There’s a nurse, six counselors, and over 100 teachers.
Instagram is unusable on district wifi, there have been emails sent out about the dangers of “13 Reasons Why,” and for the past three years the welcome back assembly speakers have preached positivity and love.
Carlmont is trying.
But students are still dying and their friends still get the news delivered six inches from their faces, along with suggestions that they are not good or pretty enough, smart or involved enough, outgoing or intriguing enough.
“If [students’ coping] was dependent on social media then it would be just horrible that they can’t talk to each other and be there for each other,” said Langkusch.
A 2017 Carlmont graduate, who asked to have her identity withheld, tried to kill herself during her sophomore year.
“I thought, ‘No one noticed me before, so why would anyone notice me now? [My parents] won’t understand that I’m not good enough and I’ll never be good enough,” she said.
But in the action, she messaged a friend to say goodbye and realized that killing herself wasn’t what she actually wanted to do. She called him for help and survived.
“If somebody is feeling alone or having feelings of hopelessness or depression they should reach out to an actual person: a parent, teacher, close friend,” said Vernon.
She has dealt with student suicides before and observed social media’s effects.
“It can be traumatizing for a lot of people. It’s important if you find out about something that’s happened, something tragic such as suicide, to try to refrain from posting about it on social media. Talk to a person instead,” said Vernon.
According to the American Public Health Association, Signs of Suicide (SOS) suicide prevention programs in high school significantly lower rates of suicide attempts and increase knowledge about coping with depression because there is intervention and communication from a group.
Talking helps. Foundations, researchers, SOS programs, guidance counselors, teachers, friends, and mourners have concluded that personal interaction and real-life relationships help people cope, whether they’re victims of mental illness or dealing with trauma.
Talking can stop a suicide and give one the respect it deserves.
Social media will continue to pose the danger that viewers only see filtered lives, and people will still participate in significant events through the internet’s false reality, but it can all be combated when people live in real life.
“We can all put on a good show: the masks that we will wear and the tone we will take. We can hide so many things,” said Langkusch.