Blue Whale the dark twisted online game which has coerced many children to commit suicide across the world has also claimed several lives in India.

Now state governments have  woken up to the seriousness of the Blue Whale Challenge and have written to the Centre to block the online social media game.
Some popular suicide-related social media games have been trending online lately, especially among youngsters. These include the “Blue Whale” suicide-challenge, a game which asks players to inflict harm on themselves and the final of 50 tasks is to commit suicide in order to win the game. Shows with dark themes such as the Netflix series 13 Reasons Why have also sparked worry about their glorification of teen suicide and the possible impact on vulnerable young minds.
Cyber experts believe that Blue Whale is not just another game easily downloadable from Playstore or any other app store and that it is, in fact, a community that has been inciting teenagers across the globe to commit suicide. The controllers of the Challenge are connected with each other through different chat rooms and contact teenagers with specific interests via social media platforms, luring them to play the game.
The killer game gives numerous tasks to its participants over a 50-day period, ranging from harmless ones such as drawing a whale on paper to watching horror films at night and slashing their wrists. The final task is a suicide dare. 
Given the craze and impact of such games and shows on today's students and given the academic pressure they face, their vulnerability cannot be downplayed. Playing games that incite you to self-harm are very dangerous, as it teaches vulnerable youngsters that suicide or self-harm are good ways to deal with problems in life. Such harmful online content should be banned as, once it becomes a trend, it will have a deeply negative influence on society and future generations.
While monitoring of such online content and advisories issued by the government is needed, it is also important that parents safeguard young minds from such disturbing trends.
Children of today are very vulnerable and impressionable youngsters will resort to extreme means to find a way out of their problems.

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Kenter Joya Riba

(Managing Editor)
      She is a graduate in Science with post graduation in Sociology from University of Pune. She has been in the media industry for nearly a decade. Before turning to print business, she has been associated with radio and television.
Email: kenterjoyaz@easternsentinel.in / editoreasternsentinel@gmail.com
Phone: 0360-2212313

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