Samaritans and Facebook; Self-harm and You Tube

From a report released on Sky News:

The Samaritans and Facebook are teaming up to allow users to get help for friends they think might be having serious problems. Facebook has 30 million users in the UK and anyone concerned about people struggling to cope or with possible suicidal thoughts will be able to get help through the Help Centre.

The feature enables users to report specific content, like status updates or wall posts. For instance, typing the word "worried" into the help centre search engine will bring up a list of places to find advice as well as the option to report suicidal content. Once a report about suicidal content has been processed, the distressed person will be sent a message with information on how they can contact the Samaritans if they need help.

Samaritans chief executive Catherine Johnstone said: "We want to remind people that if a friend says that life isn't worth living, they should always be taken seriously. "Facebook is a part of daily life for so many of us and we must make sure that people online have support when they need it."

And connected to this, a brief report has been published called: The Scope of Nonsuicidal Self-Injury on YouTube. Early in the report they state:

The top 100 videos analyzed were viewed over 2 million times, and most (80%) were accessible to a general audience. Viewers rated the videos positively (M _ 4.61; SD: 0.61 out of 5.0) and selected videos as a favourite over 12 000 times. The videos’ tones were largely factual or educational (53%) or melancholic (51%). Explicit imagery of self-injury was common. Specifically, 90% of non-character videos had non-suicidal self-injury photographs, whereas 28% of character videos had in-action non-suicidal self-injury. For both, cutting was the most common method. Many videos (58%) do not warn about this content. [My italics]

Love versus Lust

Here's a resource your Youth Group might find useful. Actually some adults might well find it useful too. It's been produced by the Grainger Community Church, and it's well produced too.



A simple idea, very well executed. (Not quite sure why it's taking up more room on the blog than videos usually do!)

I'm a Christian....and I'm a Christ follower

By now this series of videos (six or seven in all, I think) are becoming widely known, but just in case you're one of the people who still hasn't caught up with them, check them out. They parody a series of ads that compared Macs and PCs. (For those who can't get enough of them, you can find more variations on the theme on You Tube.)

The original series shows two guys, one of them a laid-back Christ follower, and the other a rather up-tight Christian with all the latest Christian gear. There's a little animosity between them - more from the Christian - but the playing of the characters is so smooth and gentle that you can only laugh. While many viewers may side with the Christ follower, it's probable that the Christian has plenty of supporters too!

The versions available for viewing on the FaithVisuals site (in the link at the beginning of this post) are a bit small. You Tube's versions are larger, but they're fairly fuzzy when they're enlarged to full screen.

Perspective

As easy as it is for those of us who are white to look back and say, "That's a terrible statement," I grew up in a very segregated South, and I think that you have to cut some slack. And I'm going to be probably the only conservative in America who's going to say something like this, but I'm just telling you: We've got to cut some slack to people who grew up being called names, being told, "You have to sit in the balcony when you go to the movie. You have to go to the back door to go into the restaurant. And you can't sit out there with everyone else. There's a separate waiting room in the doctor's office. Here's where you sit on the bus." And you know what? Sometimes people do have a chip on their shoulder and resentment. And you have to just say, I probably would too. I probably would too. In fact, I may have had ... more of a chip on my shoulder had it been me.

- Mike Huckabee, offering his perspective on the preaching of Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

The interview this comes from can be seen on You Tube. or can click on the arrow in the screen below.