It was bound to happen.

Apparently the world’s first webcam suicide has taken place, on Justin.tv, a video service that allows users to broadcast themselves from their webcams.

After posting a link to his webcam on the forums at Bodybuilding.com, Abraham Biggs, 19, died Wednesday from a toxic combination of opiates and benzodiazepines. It’s not clear how many people actually watched Abraham die online, but police found his body yesterday at 3:30 pm, nearly 12 hours after he started blogging about his intent to die.

Everyone in the article is apparently quickly pointing fingers (or defending themselves), as though any online service had anything to do with a person’s decision to end their lives. Nearly a hundred people die every day in this country from suicide and nothing about their deaths has much to do with online technologies.

Just another tragedy in a world full of tragedy. But one to note because of the public manner that Abraham chose to leave.

Read the AP article: Florida teen commits suicide in front of webcam

Dr. John Grohol is the founder & CEO of Psych Central. He is an author, researcher and expert in mental health online, and has been writing about online behavior, mental health and psychology issues -- as well as the intersection of technology and human behavior -- since 1992. Dr. Grohol sits on the editorial board of the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking and is a founding board member and treasurer of the Society for Participatory Medicine.

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    Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 21 Nov 2008
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