Mental health providers are studying a growing number of cases of suicides being live-streamed on social media. There have been three in the last month, two of them teenage girls. Houston-based psychologist Dr. Laurence Abrams says some of the people going out this way are doing it to punish others.
“They're all cries for help, or, a sense of getting even with somebody, the world,” Abrams says. “You haven't been nice to me, haven't been good to me. I'll show you.”
Actually, suicide rates are higher among adults aged 45-to-64 and 65-plus than among teenagers, but the live-streaming is unique to the young population.
In many cases they don’t know what they’re doing.
“Not many people, in my experience, have really wanted to die -- particularly teenagers,” he says. “They don't realize what death means: it's final.”