Moscow: 10-yr-old commits suicide after parental ban on computer games -- Signs of the Times News

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Moscow: 10-yr-old commits suicide after parental ban on computer games

SpiritIndia.com
Sat, 06 Oct 2007 10:38 EDT

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A 10-year-old school boy committed suicide by jumping from his 19th floor apartment here after his parents banned him from playing computer games.

Andrei Smirnov, a class three student, jumped to his death yesterday after receiving the wrath of his parents due to bad conduct in school and a poor performance in studies.

The boy's class teacher had written remarks about his bad conduct in the school diary which he had tried to erase to escape the wrath of his parents, according to Komsomolskaya Pravda tabloid.

Angered by the teacher's remarks and their son's attempt to deceive them, Andrei's parents banned him from playing games on his computer.

Local experts here have expressed concern over the unhealthy dependence of children on computers.

According to Director of Centre for Legal Psychological Assistance Mikhail Vinogradov, children who are banned from using their computers could easily resort to suicide, since they do not realise the consequences of taking the extreme step.

Comment: The child was banned from playing computer games and took his own life. As parents and as societies, do we provide our children with reasons to live and opportunities to be creative and enhance their self-worth, their self esteem? The answer for the vast majority unfortunately, is No. It is the price all humans pay under pathocracy, since some of its characteristics are:

1. the suppression of individualism and creativity
2. the impoverishment of artistic values
3. the impoverishment of moral values; a social structure based on self-interest and one-upmanship, rather than altruism.

And make no mistake: The world is currently ruled by pathocrats.

Reader Comments

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Are You Trying To Say This Kid Was Stupid?

By Acoward

First, you attack him by unfairly exposing his personal school records (out of context). Then you suggest that he is so stupid that he could "not realise the consequences of taking the extreme step [of suicide]."

Man, it seems like if you were the kid's parents it would have been a story about a 8 year old killing himself.

Added: Mon, 08 Oct 2007 15:46 EDT

Replies

By Scott

I don't know what the author's motives were, but it is pretty clear to me that technology can be harmful in many ways - especially for children. At the risk of sounding like an old man, what ever happened to reading a good book to learn something and expand one's mind??

Added: Tue, 09 Oct 2007 03:23 EDT

I Can Understand This

By Elysion

Well, since the article was not specific i can only assume things. But if it was a situation like i am thinking of I could understand this kind of thing happening.

The internet and online social things or games (which are often social or based around social communities) can exist as a sort of parallel reality to our own. If the kid more or less 'constructed' his world from doing social things online, talking to people online, playing online, and living online rather than doing it in reality, removing his capability to go online would be like shutting him off from his entire universe.

And I don't even see a problem with that. After all you cant talk to people from anywhere in the world with out the internet, the internet can bring people togeather. The main hazard is that our current infrastructure is not really suited to guarantee full time dependability.

Added: Tue, 09 Oct 2007 03:59 EDT

An Hero Tiem?

By Broodstar1337

At least Mitchell Henderson got his iPod stolen before he killed himself.

Added: Sun, 21 Oct 2007 22:46 EDT

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