copycats

Great book if you want to start an epidemic.

One lesson I've learnt from it - do not underestimate the power of influence. even subtle ones.

There's this real life example of how teenagers in a village commit suicide one after another, all because of one person who started it and it got featured in local newspapers, and subsequently other teenagers think that it is "acceptable" to commit suicide because of some frivolous problems, and that some even went to the extend of "trying out" suicide after knowing how the first person killed himself.

WTH??!?!!

Maybe that explains why there are two deaths in NTU the other time. kind of like a "oh, someone did it, i've been thinking about it too, so now I shall do it."

tsk tsk. but it is human nature to follow our herd instincts too.

maybe newspapers should stop publishing news of all the train suicides and maybe, just maybe, people will stop thinking about jumping off the platform - and find other less gruesome (and less troublesome) ways to die instead.

=D just a lil suggestion.