'Facebook, MySpace can lead children to suicide'

Lahore: Social networking websites such as Facebook and Myspace are leading teenagers to build "transient relationships" that leave them unable to cope with reality, Archbishop Vincent Nichols has told The Sunday Telegraph.

In an interview following the suicide of a 15-year-old schoolgirl after she was bullied on another networking site, Bebo, the Archbishop of Westminster said the Internet and mobile phones were "dehumanising" community life.

"I think there's a worry that an excessive use or an almost exclusive use of text and emails means that as a society we're losing some of the ability to build interpersonal communication that's necessary for living together and building a community," he said. "Facebook and MySpace might contribute towards communities, but I'm wary about it," he said. He warned that the sites were contributing to a trend for teenagers to put too much importance on the number of friends they have and that this could ultimately lead to suicide.

"It's an all or nothing syndrome that you have to have in an attempt to shore up an identity; a collection of friends about whom you can talk and even boast. But friendship is not a commodity, friendship is something that is hard work and enduring when it's right," he added.

Archbishop Nichols also pointed at moves to legalise assisted suicide as particularly worrying and called on the government to do more to support the traditional family. Daily times