by Audrey Carroll

You’re scrolling through the newsfeed of your favorite social network, and come across a picture of someone’s scarred wrist with an inspirational quote edited across it. You may think this is wrong, or maybe it’s tragically beautiful. If you think it’s wrong (as you should), you’ll shake your head and continue scrolling. If you think the photo is inspirational, you’ll share it. This is the problem. Self-harm is becoming a popular internet topic that people are using to get “likes”. This is immoral and insulting. Turning self-harm into a “glamorous” internet fad is disrespectful to those who actually struggle with self-harm.

Self-harm is defined as “the intentional, direct injuring of [the] body.” Examples of self-harm would be cutting, burning, eating disorders or even snapping rubber bands on one’s wrist if the intention was to inflict pain. Traumatic events or mental issues, like depression and/or anxiety, can often lead someone to start self-harming.

Portraying self-harm in this way on the internet is disrespectful to those actually dealing with self-harm. They do not like to see their issues exploited on the internet to benefit bloggers that are trying to gain attention. Also, seeing photos or videos or quotes can be a trigger for people trying to stay clean, meaning that seeing a photo displaying instances of self-harm can make people resort to harming themselves again. In many cases, self-harming individuals have legitimate mental illnesses, even though they may not know it. Seeing pictures online regarding their illness makes them confused: “Is what I’m doing okay since it is on the internet?” “Are these people mocking me?”

As teenagers, we’re the most frequent users of the internet and social media. Photos, videos and pop culture are things we’re constantly surrounded by. I was curious to see how many internet users our age have ever seen something online pertaining to self-harm. So, I texted the following survey to a few local high schoolers and posted it on twitter and instagram…

Out of the 31 people I surveyed, 29 people answered “B” and 2 people answered “A”. Although it is a small group, the votes clearly put things into perspective. Roughly 93% of the voters agree that online media glamorizing self-harm is disrespectful to those who experience self-harm. And even though that is the point I am trying to stress, I think it’s important to focus on option D. No one said that they had never seen something online promoting or disrespecting self-harm. What does that say about our internet culture? People are becoming so accustomed to seeing things like this online that it’s seen as a topic that is not as serious as it should be. There’s something wrong with that.

If a majority of teens agree that posting things online promoting self-harm is wrong, then how come it’s something that is so prominent on the internet? A few people that I surveyed told me stories about how this topic is personal to them because they have friends that have self-harmed before. They’re afraid that if these friends see certain images, they will go back to self-harming. If the topic of romanticizing self-harm is personal to you, speak out! This issue will not be resolved until people take action.

So the next time you see that picture of someone’s wrist with the fancy editing, flag it as inappropriate and move on. You and I both know that photo isn’t uplifting in any way. As a generation that is so social media oriented, it is our duty to make the internet a safe place for everyone. We can’t let hospital bracelets become a trend.