Chatrooms of death

last updated 8 January 2015

Tokyo

Internet sites that promote suicide have sprung up in Japan over the past year, feeding a suicide rate double that of the U.S. At least 32 people, mostly in their teens and 20s, have killed themselves in small groups after meeting one another online and downloading instructions on carbon monoxide poisoning or other methods. Some experts blame explosive growth in unemployment and rapid changes in Japan’s economic structure. Today’s youths are “lost and confused,” psychiatrist Rika Kayama told The Washington Post. “The long-held direction and goals of Japanese society are collapsing around them.” But police say the ease of text-messaging and the instructions on the Web sites are also to blame, as many of the “Internet suicides” were not depressed and seem to have decided on the spur of the moment to kill themselves.