A town in Wales is reeling from a wave of teen suicides, and when a 16-year-old girl was found hanging in the woods this week, the total deaths reached 17 in a little over one year. Some media reports have speculated on a possible internet suicide pact among teens in the area, but the police say there is no evidence of this or of any possible criminal causes of the deaths. While many of the victims did use a social networking site, the authorities say this played no part in the deaths, and argue against the more sensational media coverage. The parents of a 15-year-old boy in the same area who killed himself last week ask for more media restraint, and say "their son may have been influenced by media reports they believe glamorized earlier suicides."

Is there an internet connection between the teens who took their own lives? Sadly, "suicide clusters" where several teens in an area kill themselves over a span of a few to many years, are not unheard of, and certainly pre-date social networking sites. There's been many observed suicide clusters around the world and sociologists have even used them as evidence of the profound influence of society on even our own instinct towards self-preservation. Teens and young adults are the most suceptible to clusters, and in many ways we still don't understand mass suicide, let alone have tons of effective means of prevention. And they are profoundly tragic for the parents of the teens who kill themselves, and terrifying to the parents of adolescents in the area.