Gay Teens and Suicide

Tyler Clementi, Freshman, Rutgers University


Authorities have found the body of Tyler Clementi floating in the Hudson River. Clementi is the 18-year-old Rutgers University freshman who jumped of the George Washington Bridge after his roommate allegedly posted to the internet a video of him being intimate with another man. In the fall semester of his first year in college, a time that is supposed to be full of possibility, this young man felt humiliated to the point that he gave up hope. I wonder at the mentality of those who would play such a prank, but my mind is incapable to wrapping itself around the possibility such cruelty could have been deliberate. I can only believe that the two students who posted the video did not think through the consequences.
Also shocking, it has emerged that Clementi had once reported a similar incident. He

reportedly notified his resident adviser and other university officials about an incident earlier this month in which his roommate, Dharun Ravi, allegedly live streamed video of Clementi having a sexual encounter with a male classmate.

According to the ABC News report on that, his complaint was not ignored, but I’m not sure it was handled properly.  Had it been, perhaps the death could have been averted.
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A Good Article on Mobile Devices and Driving

A 2009 AAA Foundation study found that 91.5 percent of drivers considered talking on the phone while driving a serious threat to their safety; 97 percent said it was completely unacceptable to send a text or e-mail while driving. But two-thirds of those people admitted talking on their own phones while driving, and 1 in 7 have texted while driving.

That little tidbit exposing the hypocrisy of the American driver comes from an article in the Christian Science Monitor, “Texting while driving: the new drunk driving.”  I wouldn’t be surprised if a good percentage of the 1/3 who didn’t admit to talking on the phone while driving were people who don’t even have phones. When the phone rings and you are driving, its a difficult temptation to resist.
I’m going to leave aside the question of texting while driving because, although I must confess I have done it, it is so obviously a stupid thing to do and clearly dangerous.  Apparently simply talking on the phone  is quite dangerous, as well, moreso than I realized.

At the University of Utah’s Applied Cognition Laboratory, Professor Strayer has been testing this do-as-I-say theory for a decade. Using neuroimaging and a drive simulator, he and his colleagues have watched what happens when drivers – including those who claim to be able to text, tweet, and talk safely at the wheel – mix cellphones and cars.
The results are stark: Almost nobody multiprocesses the way they think they can. For 98 percent of the population, regardless of age, the likelihood of a crash while on a cellphone increases fourfold; the reaction to simulated traffic lights, pedestrians, and vehicles is comparable to that of someone legally intoxicated.
Although some critics claim that the simulator isn’t real enough, studies of real-life driving in Canada and Australia had similar findings.

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The disruption, he says, is cognitive. Unlike a conversation with a passenger sharing the same physical space of the car, the electronic conversation takes a driver into a virtual space away from the road.
“We record brain activity,” Strayer says, “and we can show that it’s suppressed from the cellphone conversation.”

That’s odd and interesting, but believable.  Phone conversations are different from in person conversations and even if you could hear both sides of the conversation, you would probably know very quickly it was a mobile phone conversation.  And I feel like a lot of people can’t even walk straight while talking on their mobile phones.  They wander around drunkenly obliviously to everything and everyone around them. Its very odd.
Anyway, this is a good article, full of interesting tidbits.  Check it out.

Was It Good for You? Let Me Check Your Facebook Page

The text below provides some statistics about “gadget-savvy online individuals” under the age of 35 surveyed on behalf of the website Retrevo.com.  The first percentage is shocking, the second frightening, the third not a bit surprising and the last, well, what’s the big deal?

The younger crowd is also quite keen on tweeting, texting, and checking Facebook after sex (36%), while driving (40%), while at work (64%), and when on vacation (65%).
via Young Social Mediaphiles: 36% Tweet and Check Facebook After Sex.

It isn’t so much the numbers themselves that are surprising.  The survey is, after all, a survey of gadget-savvy people,  so one would expect the numbers to be higher than they might in the general population.  So that 64% of respondents use these tools at work or on vacation seems reasonable.  In fact, it surprises me the number isn’t higher.
Tweeting, texting and Facebook?  That’s a lot of tools.  Increasingly people use one or more of those tools for work.  As for using them on vacation, they are called social networking tools, and socially is how most people started using them.  It is their use for business and professional purposes that is new.  So why wouldn’t they be used on vacation.   I like to be unplugged on vacation sometimes, but that’s because I work online.  Many people are thrilled by the possibility of posting their vacation snapshots while on vacation.  And , if family members went off to do different things during the day of a family vacation, it can be awfully handy to text them if you want to change the meeting place for dinner.
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That leaves only the driving to talk about.  Tell me more please.  Where were those numbers highest?  Certain states?  Cities?  Do they drive more at certain times of the day?  Do they use highways or byways more?  Tell me all you can.  ‘Cause I want to do all I can to be OFF THE ROAD whenever and wherever they are!

Survey Results on a Chart

Survey Results on a Chart


NB: This entry has bee corrected in response to the comment below. (10/13/2009)