Youth Commits Suicide to Meet Cyber Friends in Afterlife

[WastelandDan]

Xinhuanet Reports: (http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-05/31/content_3023991.htm)

A recent case of suicide by a boy addicted to Internet games has increased the public's concern over the issue of Internet Addiction Disorder (IAD). Xiao Yi, a 13-year-old from Tianjin, committed suicide thinking that he would meet his friends from cyber space after he died. He jumped from the top of a 24-storey high-rise, Beijing Youth Daily reported yesterday. He left four notes before he committed suicide. In the letters Xiao, playing the role of a character from a computer game, said that he wanted to meet three friends who also played the game in paradise.
Cases like this are always cited as examples of how video games corrupt young minds, but clearly this kid had some serious issues to begin with.

[Furious Wang]

There's a very simple solution:

Ban 24-story high rises.

[Heretic Machine]

Oh nooo, we lost another jack-ass!

[Thumper]

Crazy asians.

[Chagrinful]

And the Darwin goes to.... Drumroll please, this poor bastard here! I wonder if he also invited those other 3 on his journey with him, but the media in their area are slow to report it?

[Zeal]

It amazes me how the press is unable to see the simple and realistic answer to cases like this:

Mental disorder.

And an even more simplistic answer...don't play fucking Japanese MMORPGs.

[*Legion*]

And an even more simplistic answer...don't play fucking Japanese MMORPGs.

I like the advice with the "MMO" part removed. :)

[Pnorcio]

I bet he lost some hella exp.

[snubber]

This dude just entered the matrix!

[Mason]

Hmm, Lain is probably a better reference.

If any media outlet reports this story as anything other than proof that MMORPGs don't cure mental illness, they're stupid.

[zyzyx]

I blame Blizzard. The guy probably figured he'd just have to walk from the nearest graveyard and get his mom to sew a hole in his Levis.

[AversionFX]

The part that makes this bad, is that the general, uninformed public forms the idea that we're all as stupid as Asians that jump off rooftops to meet people in cyberspace. You try to make something idiot proof, and they just make a better idiot, it seems. First a dude dies because he's too retarded to go home, and now a kid jumps off a rooftop. Factor in some other stupid people, and damn. It's rough being a gamer.

[Savok]

Give the kid a Darwin Award and be done with it.

[Kelegacy]

I'm going to kill myself, but leave a suicide note saying how Twinkies and Ho-Ho's made me do it. Looking at their disgustingly sweet boxes in the snack aisle every week made me finally want to travel to the afterlife where there would be no Hostess, Drake, or Little Debbie.

I bet snack cakes wont get a back rap though. But if i killed myself over Everquest or GTA, yup it'd make headlines.

[HarverdGrad]

It's not the uninformed public.
They don't give a shit.
It's the gamer geeks that think it's a big consiracy and make such a big deal when articles like this crop up.
The media would like to thank you for validating their bullshit journalism.

[Kermit]

Make games more addictive so ppl wouldn't think to leave their pc to jump of a building.

[Ka_Feosh]

I'm surprised noone has made a Serial Experiments Lain crack about this. I could bet any amount of money that's where the kid got the idea in the first place.

[fndarkone]

who are we to say he didnt meet up with his friends in the afterlife?

[XenonCJ]

This dude just entered the matrix!or just left it...

[XenonCJ]

who are we to say he didnt meet up with his friends in the afterlife?Well, most religions universially agree that suicide is a one-way ticket to your religion of choice's version of Hell.

So, depending how his friends died, he's probably too concerned with the giant ants, djinns, fire elementals, deamons and/or cyber-mechanical skeletrons with psyconic-electrical flails at the moment to meet up with them.

Or he's enjoying sweet dark and infinite oblivion....

just my 2 pennance

[Deadend]

Well, most religions universially agree that suicide is a one-way ticket to your religion of choice's version of Hell.

So, depending how his friends died, he's probably too concerned with the giant ants, djinns, fire elementals, deamons and/or cyber-mechanical skeletrons with psyconic-electrical flails at the moment to meet up with them.

Or he's enjoying sweet dark and infinite oblivion....

just my 2 pennance

He probably went there for the XP.

But he forgot to bring a group, what a n00b.

[Oppe]

Internet Addiction Disorder (IAD)

Uh oh, it must be real, they gave it an acronym!

[XxSATANxX]

Uhm Chinese newspaper......

They spend as much time blaming the Internet etc as the games.

Yup free thought that's the enemy.

All hail are robot Masters!

[Liquidize105]

Uh oh, it must be real, they gave it an acronym!
Internet Addiction Disorder is real.

[Zeal]

Internet Addiction Disorder is real.

Yes, as evident by communities like Gamingforce.com and Anime conventions.

[if76]

I really doubt anyone will use this incident as evidence of anything. People need to relax.

[PIPBoy3000]

If you look at the research, suicide is the leading cause of death among that age group in China and #5 for all age groups:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=11897283&dopt=Abstract

There are 287,000 suicides/year, about 4 per minute. That one of those many thousands would do it for a reason most find bizarre is just statistics at work.

[Crabby]

Seriously guys, I really need to thank you for the laughs from this news post. It is so absolutely ridiculous you can't help but crack numerous jokes about it. I mean, if anything, this case further proves that Asian gamers are freaking psychotic.

Also, the article didn't even specify if these friends were actually dead. I got the impression that he just wanted to "visit" some people that were actually alive somewhere, which is a little more nutty. It is actually very reminiscent of a very ego-centric philosophy. If this kid actually thought that he would be reaching these living people than he must have been of the opinion that the world was his own internal creation anyway.

...Either that or he really didn't care too much about it. I mean, in the off-chance that death is some sort of dream what difference would reality make at that point?

[Heretic Machine]

Internet Addiction Disorder is real.

Just as much as FACAD is real. Frosted Animal Cookie Adiction Disorder, it's taken over my life! Oh nooo!

Self-control = Mmm, good.

[mister_slim]

One thing to keep in mind is that the Chinese government is using MMOs as a bit of a scapegoat right now, and the newspaper is following their lead. Remember how, a couple years ago, Saddam Hussein was a huge threat to the US, with WMDs spilling out of every pocket?

[B_Money]

Just as much as FACAD is real. Frosted Animal Cookie Adiction Disorder, it's taken over my life! Oh nooo!

Self-control = Mmm, good.

They make frosted animal cookies now? *Drool*

[fndarkone]

internet adiction is real. anything is potentially addictive and some people are predisposed to becoming addicted. particularly things that derive pleasure like food, the internet, pornography, exercise, and drugs. im not saying that that throws self control out the window; im just saying that there is a definate inappropriate biochemical reaction in the brain in some people. it just so happens that advocate groups like to single certain addictions out and wag their fingers and say, "i told you so."

[Kelegacy]

They make frosted animal cookies now? *Drool*

They have for years, bub. I was a wee lad in the 80's and remember eating them from a pink bag you rolled down to close like a chip bag. I liked them but looking back on it, they were super nasty. Kids eat anything. Hell, i ate my little brother Mikey when my mother wasnt looking. Still havent said anything about it to this day to her, even after the funeral and shit. She thinks the dingos took him.

[Cuba]

There's a very simple solution:

Ban 24-story high rises.No no no, that thinking is all wrong, the building didn't kill him, it was the pavement below. The correct solution is clearly to ban all horizontal surfaces.

[Dra2k]

Neither of those need to be banned it's actually gravity that should be banned since it actually murdered him.

[Demize99]

They should ban deceleration, cause thats what really killed him, not gravity or the pavement. Slowing down is no illegal, its already a law of physics.

[*Legion*]

They should ban deceleration

Technically, it's negative acceleration (or, more precisely, acceleration in the opposite direction of motion).

I've had physics teachers that wanted to kill students if they used the term "deceleration" (because it's all acceleration - not a different thing).