Why teenagers play with death

A year has passed since the publication of the article about “groups of death” in Novaya Gazeta. The news about the ominous “blue whales” (by the name of one of the groups), taking the lives of hundreds of children, has become a real “network Chernobyl”.

The State Duma has banned any communities in social networks, directly or indirectly associated with calls for suicide. There are already proposals to let people in social networks only with a passport. But the main questions – what are we fighting and how to win – there is no answer.

We now know that the groups in which adolescents were encouraged to commit suicide through play are not a new weapon of cultists and terrorists, but a cynical adventure by young people of the same kind that has gone too far. In the police, only the smallest part of teenage suicides that have occurred in recent times are associated with the Blue Whale. So, “passed”? Can you breathe out?

Alas, everything is not so simple. Discussions only fueled the interest of teenagers in games. Search engines were bombarded with requests like “Blue Whale, what a game”. Demand was followed by an offer – the games “resurrected” in new forms. Is this “renaissance” dangerous? What do “suicidal games” attract teenagers in general? How does their mechanism work and how can they be resisted?

In April, a round table was held on the topic of dangerous online games, organized by the Noon social adaptation project. Psychologists, activists, specialists working with adolescents discussed the most pressing issues, and we have collected answers to the main questions.

Why is this phenomenon happening right now?

Games with death were always and everywhere. Even before the advent of the Internet, there were test games: stand on the rails in front of the train and jump off at the last moment, jump off the bridge into the water, hook on the trolley bus and drive to the next stop. These are courage tests. Children go for it to get an adrenaline rush and be known as daredevils.

“Blue Whale” is a new form of organization of such games. Many processes that used to be intimate have become public on the Internet. Video bloggers discuss relationships with their parents, quarrel, worry, and do stupid tricks right in front of the camera. Forms of self-expression that exist “in real life” migrated to the Web.

Many teenagers play Blue Whale for the same reason they cut their hands and climb abandoned construction sites. They are driven either by the desire to get adrenaline or curiosity.

Why do teenagers need it?

Games with death usually begin at the age of 12-14. At this age, a teenager is aware of himself as a separate person, wants to disconnect from his parents, challenge their authority and prove his adulthood.

The assertion of power over one’s body is also an attribute of an adult. “I can put a naked photo on the Internet, I can smoke, I can destroy myself if I want, my body belongs to me; my life belongs to me. I am an adult: I do not watch Smeshariki, but draw whales. I have a common topic of conversation with older children.”

Most teenagers don’t plan to die in the game. They do not believe in their death at all. This is too incomprehensible and distant event for them. They think that the game will tell them something about this phenomenon, but will not kill them.

There are those who want to “replay the game”. They challenge her. “I will play by the rules and win.” When a popular topic of conversation appears, those who are against it appear. But here you can be both a hero and a fighter.

There is a powerful movement of “dolphins” or “whalers” who are looking for administrators and fighting them. These are also children, they also play like that. Sometimes they just join the group, dissuade the members.

There is a group of schoolchildren who are officially looking for money to organize such death groups. Although they did not find the money, the very fact of such thinking shows that for them it is just a fun and trendy topic that you can play and even make money on it. But it is not a fact that these funds would go exactly to the stated goal.

Who is at risk?

There is a small group of children who seek to extinguish their emotional pain in these games, to draw attention to themselves.

“Among the parents of children caught in the game, indifference is very common,” says Svetlana Volokita, president of the More Life Family Support Foundation, which rescues children from such situations. – We called the father and said that something happened to his child, he needs attention. The child has been playing this game for more than 40 days, that is, close to suicide. The parent replies that he has no time. I managed to connect my brother, who had to be pulled out of the army for this. I am convinced that if a child wanted to die and thought it over for a long time, he would have done it. If he is looking for a game, then he needs attention.

“The root of the problem is the situation in the family and the problems of socialization,” Svetlana Volokita believes. She cites such a case. The girl lives with her mother. Mom is in her second marriage and takes care of children from her stepfather.

When the girl began to wake up at 4:20, cut herself, close herself in a room with closed curtains on the windows, her grandmother sounded the alarm. At the appeal of the NGO employees, the mother only dismissed, and the father said that “this child is not included in his plans.”

The only thing that made the parents turn on was the threat of a court, since there is also a criminal punishment for passive behavior in emergency situations. But after leaving the game, the situation has not changed: the girl still has conflicts with her parents, she is dissatisfied with her life.

The Blue Whale aims to draw attention to itself. There was a gray teenager, “quiet”, an inconspicuous schoolboy. But as soon as he gets into the game, he immediately becomes the one who needs to be saved. He is involved in a “cool”, adult and dangerous business.

They conduct a dialogue with him at a new level, not from a top-down position. He is perceived as a person who is able to manage his life. “Death threats are the most effective and fairly simple way to make yourself known and really attract attention,” emphasizes Svetlana Volokita.

When were these games created?

Initially, on sites and resources like “2ch”, “Upyachka”, “Chamber No. 6”, “Overheard”, the “net-stalking” movement was born (net – “network”, stalking – “stalking”). Its essence is in the search for “treasures” on the Internet – hidden pages, oddities, deleted (supposedly) videos.

Even just scrolling through the news feed in search of the unusual is the beginning of netstalking. Anyone who finds something interesting immediately attracts attention and becomes popular for a while. The first “suicide game” appeared on one of these sites.

How they work

A person receives an invitation or writes a message on the Web himself, leaving the desired hashtag, keyword. The curator is assigned to the participant. The game lasts 50 days, and for each day the player is sent one task. He has to get up at 04:20 and do something.

At first, the tasks are relatively harmless: go outside without a jacket, read a book for 2 hours, listen to certain music. Then they become more dangerous: run across the road at a red light, go to the parapet and look down. The last five are extremely dangerous and can lead to death, and in the final, the player is directly told: kill yourself.

How it works? How does the game set you up for suicide?

“The curators of Blue Whale or other similar games manipulate the player to weaken their sense of reality and self-preservation instinct,” says Alexander Minkin, lead game developer at Noon. – First, sleep deprivation and emotional impact are turned on. The player has to get up at 4 am for several days in a row. This unsettles him, he becomes suspicious, anxious, easier to suggest. In addition to lack of sleep, the player receives depressive emotions from texts and music. So the participant matures to a state where it is easy to manipulate him.

The second stage is aimed at dulling the instincts. The teenager is offered to get used to the idea that death is near, it can be touched. He crossed the road, stood on the edge of the bridge – that means he conquered death a little. At this stage, there are threats from the curator: to kill relatives of a teenager, to lay out some “compromising evidence” if the player decides to “jump off”.

Some of these mechanisms are familiar to psychologists, because it is very similar to the formation of a habit. The participant is drawn in, gets used to performing tasks over and over again, obeying the curator. The game mechanics are well suited to this task: it keeps the player’s attention and state in “flow”.

What does “flow state” mean? Alexander explains: “Let’s take a game of tennis as an example. We picked up a racket for the first time and are learning to hit the ball against the wall. After a few sessions, we can already calculate the trajectory and impact force. As soon as the results are visible, we are up against a coach who adapts to our level. It’s hard for us, but we manage, and so on until the tennis championship.

We are constantly interested – we are “in the flow”. But if the coach leaves us to practice against the wall for too long, we get bored. And vice versa, if he plays at full strength, we experience stress due to constant failures.

In the Blue Whale game, boring tasks alternate with interesting ones. The first ones are intriguing, arouse curiosity. Then a few boring tasks make you languish in anticipation. Then again there are interesting ones, but the complexity is growing. Having overcome them, the players feel their victory.

If you increase the difficulty with each stage, it will be impossible to reach the end. And due to the intermediate points, the player remains in the “stream”.

The weakness of the game is manifested where the curator has to threaten the participant. This suggests that the mechanics do not always cope with keeping a person in the game. Where interest fails to hold, fear comes into play. The participant cannot post a photo on the Web to tell what exactly is happening to him. And it works: someone stays because of the fear of losing their relatives, someone because of the prospect of being disgraced.”

Who benefits?

For the most part, people do not know how the game works, see no reason to play it, perceive all groups of death as a complex threat and easily draw the image of an enemy behind them. It’s like there’s a single villain running all these groups and games.

But there is no evidence of a connection between suicides and games, there is no visual picture, there is a lot of speculation around how it works. And there are no demands from any terrorist organization, as well as statements that someone assumes responsibility for these actions.

The death rate of adolescents as a result of such games is not so significant as to talk about the terrorist threat or the development of weapons. Supporting all curators and all groups means huge budgets with minimal results. Such performance does not suit any intelligence service.

In addition, the information that the curator uses is always obtained from open sources in the most primitive way. These people have no secrets or power. These are not adult hackers, but active peers of the participants. Perhaps some of them have a personal grudge against their players.

Now it is impossible to say who exactly created the first game. Perhaps a psychologist, perhaps a teenager. Perhaps this is someone’s thesis. The format and versions of this game are constantly changing, and now it is organized by different young people.

As if we were walking from yard to yard and found the games that children play there: knives, hopscotch, rubber band, ball. It seems that everyone is similar, but the author is unknown and the rules are different.

And the process of the game, the mechanics and the image of the participants suggest that both the administrators and the participants are teenagers. This is especially noticeable by the fact that no one takes such a game seriously until the last moment. After all, a teenager does not believe in his own mortality.

It may seem to some that the Blue Whale is a unique and very complex phenomenon. This is not true. Children play a lot of games – this is the norm of their daily life. And the number of games created by children is huge, especially on the Internet.

The “Blue Whale” was born at the junction of several phenomena – craving for extreme sports, the search for new sensations, the desire to gain the respect of peers and prove one’s adulthood. Teenagers come into the game to get attention, get adrenaline, beat the opponent and pay off the heartache. The administrator and the participant come to the game in different ways, but already in the process they treat it the same way, they do not fully believe that the game will end in death, and strive to beat the opponent.

How to deal with it?

1. Do not be afraid

Stop talking breathlessly about the game. So we just add popularity to this topic. Our task is to bring this concept out of fashion.

2. Form values

It is hard for teenagers to realize what is really important and expensive in life. It is necessary to talk with children about family, work, friendship, to show by example what is really valuable. Read classical literature together, discuss films and story-driven computer games. For example, the Noon project holds games for children from orphanages in which they can live through this or that situation and make a value choice.

3. Be vigilant

The child himself will not ask for help if he is already on the path of suicide. It’s important to watch him. If he started playing, he has about 40 days. Changes in behavior are clearly visible: isolation, depression, sleep disturbances, cuts and injuries appear.

4. Be around

It is important to know what is happening with the child, with his environment, what worries him, what he feels, whether he is often lonely. And also teach him to call an adult for help in extreme situations.

5. Reassure

If a child has embarked on the path of suicide, declared this, he needs to be explained that there are people who will be upset because of his death. Does he want it? The answer may follow: “I have no friends, they do not care, no one needs me.” Then we can say that even strangers to him will be upset, will empathize.

6. Discuss the topic of suicide

A teenager may perceive suicide in a romantic way, as a flashy gesture, a way to “leave beautifully.” It is important to give him an alternative view – what pain and suffering this step brings to people, how distorted his life looks in the eyes of a suicide.

There are films and social videos that bring up these topics. Whatever you watch, be sure to discuss it with your child – it is important to find out about his impressions, thoughts and feelings about what he saw.

7. Interrupt the “flow”

As with other games on the Internet, for example, various farms, we get carried away and for some time we can “fall out” of reality. But it is worth interrupting for a week – and we no longer remember them.

If you are afraid that your child is already playing a dangerous game, isolate him from communications, take him to the country for a week, let him sleep. At a minimum, he will stop taking the threats of the curator as real, and at the maximum, he will stop taking the game seriously. But remember that this is not a solution to his internal problems, but only an interruption of the “flow” state.

8.Give a replacement

Breaking contact is not enough to pull you out of the flow. Next, it is important to find something that the child likes, and give him the opportunity to do it. Support his hobby, some interesting activity for him.

If you push and punish, it will backfire. The child will find another way to commit suicide or return to the game – through friends, other people’s accounts.

9. Contact a psychologist

There are psychological centers that work with “whales”, you can find them on the Internet.

The story of the Blue Whale teaches us that children need attention. They are not just an object of education, they are living people with their own emotions, desires and aspirations. A “fashionable”, exciting topic shifts the focus of the problem: many are captivated by the idea of ​​​​a suicide epidemic, but they are not so interested in talking about the real problems of children – loneliness, failures in love, inattention or violence from parents.