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BRIDGEND: THE INTERNET LINK

Jenna Parry, centre, and Kelly Stephenson and Nathaniel Pritchard who were found last week

Wednesday February 20,2008

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JENNA Parry, the 17th belonged to the social networking websites Bebo and Facebook.

They are mainly used by young people to communicate with each other, swap ideas, join groups and build up new friends – all via the internet.

Bebo, an acronym for “Blog early, blog often”, was founded in 2005 by husband and wife Michael and Xochi Birch and has become one of the most popular sites in the UK.

It can be used in most countries around the world and is continuing to grow. There is a new Polish version which uses a different database and there are plans to create similar ones in France and Germany.

Bebo is believed to be the third most popular social networking site but it only has a 1.18 per cent share of the market because there are so many.

The websites have sparked fears about young people’s safety – particularly girls who post personal information and pictures on their pages.

It came as an expert warned how the “suicide cluster” might be the result of teenagers imitating one another after contact on the internet.

While police have tried to play down connections between the 17 deaths, psychologist and novelist Lucy Beresford said:

“What could be going on is that adolescents are sharing and describing experiences on the internet.

“People of this age tend to be very imitative. This is a period of enormous change when young people start to form their own identities but are often insecure about these identities so they look to others.

“The thing about suicide among teenagers is that when things seem so uncertain, it is the fact that this is something that is so final.

“The experiences they describe are toxic, rather than in my day when you might be influenced by magazines like Smash Hits.”

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