Teenage Wasteland

    I read an article about "Teenage Wasteland" . It is about a incident that teenage mass suicide in Bergenfield, NJ in 1987. The point of this article is what context and background the mass suicide had. First of all, teenage suicide was a virtually nonexistent category prior to 1960. But between 1950 and 1980, "suicide " is second leading cause of death among American's young people. The actual suicide rate among people aged 15 to 24. To date, there are more than 5,000 teen suicided annually. The most unbelievable things is that 400,000 adolescents attempt suicide each year. The research says that these tragic incidents mostly happen in rural areas like what happened in Bergenfield. Besides, alcohol and drugs are involved increasingly. According to the reading, after what happened in Bergenfield, the number of a mass suicide had been increasing. Moreover, many young people imitated the way they die from the incident. The question was what social factors tied them so closely and led them to be ended their life by suicide. These days, a mass suicide becomes a social problem in Japan as well. I remember a incident that young people who got to know each other on the internet and died in a mass suicide. The police found the website where those young people met each other after the incident. The website name was" suicide community" and it assembled people who wanted to die together. Those applicants left a message on the website about how they felt about the society and their grudge against people who were around them. These people were suffering from social withdrawal, and who did not go to school. As the article says, not only teenage suicide but most cases of suicide were thought to be due to social background and cultural background. Many young people in Japan feel pressure thinking about their future in the difficulty of finding work after graduating from college. They think that the failure of finding job means a loser of the society. Therefore they are likely to commit suicide these days. It might be difficult to change the social style or cultural standard of each counties but there must be a space where young people can feel free to talk what is on their mind.