CYBER THREAT

The Church vs. Facebook

British clergy warns against transient relationships.

Log on with caution: The head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales has warned that Facebook and MySpace may cause teenagers to commit suicide. Social networking, he says, forces teens to form “transient relationships,” which leaves them unequipped to cope with friends in the real world. “Among young people often a key factor in them committing suicide is the trauma of transient relationships,” the Archbishop of Westminster Vincent Nichols said. His warnings come after a 15-year-old girl overdosed on painkillers after being bullied on the social networking site Bebo. Nichols said the social networking sites—along with cell phones—were “dehumanizing” community life, and that teenagers “throw themselves into a friendship or network of friendships, then it collapses and they’re desolate.”