The front page of today's UK Metro newspaper carries the story of a 15-year-old ballerina whose search for love online ended in her suicide. 

But this was no ill-fated Internet romance. Rather Tallulah Wilson, a Royal Ballet School pupil, created an online alter ego - a fantasy cocaine-taking character - and shared images of her self harm on social media sites.

She visited a range of different web pages under this pseudonym, including several that promoted suicide. Her retreat into a virtual world was, the article said, an attempt to cope with alleged bullying, her grandmother's death and her parent's divorce.

Perhaps the most heart-wrenching line in the story was from her mother who told the coroner's court, "[Tallulah] said she had 18,000 people who loved her for who she was online". 

In a recent paper Being human in the digital age – an Anglican perspective, I wrote: "Perhaps the biggest threat to spiritual wellbeing is when human beings choose to seek affirmation and ‘love’ only online."

Easy and instant access to pornography was one example, but another was "a more subtle and potentially insidious addiction...caused by the ‘Like’ button." 

Our basic human need to be loved and valued for who we are means there is a real danger that we post on social media sites secretly hoping for a tsunami of 'Likes' - digital acknowledgements of our worth as a member of a virtual community. 

In her TED talk Alone Together* technology guru Sherry Turkle says: “People are compelled by the little red light on the Blackberry that tells them a message is waiting. I ask them why, and they talk about their mobile device as the place for hope in their life, the place where something new will come to them, the place where loneliness can be defeated.” (My italics)  

Such quotes, illustrated by the tragic case of Tallulah Wilson, plus the fact that 1.08 billion people around the world own a smartphone^** underscore the urgent need for God's Church to get serious about living out its faith the digital world.

Having a decent website filled with podcast sermons is a start, but it's simply not enough. When our children are living and dying online shouldn't God's people be on Tumblr, Facebook, and Bebo telling people gathered there that Jesus Christ is the hope of the world who meets all our deepest needs and loves us for who we are?

- Jan Butter is the Director for Communication of the Anglican Communion

*http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtLVCpZIiNs

** Smartphone Users Around the World – Statistics and Facts [Infographic] January 2012 http://www.go-gulf.com/blog/smartphone/