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Earlier this week the national child protection charity, the NSPCC released some very disturbing figures. It recorded a 15% rise in children who seriously contemplate suicide. This is reflected in over sixty calls a day to the charity’s designated helpline. Experts offer a number of reasons as to why there are presently so many young people considering ending their lives. Yesterday on this program, John Cameron, head of helplines at the NSPCC blamed the unrelenting stream of social media, which means that kids can no longer just ‘switch off.’ While the ability to switch off is essential to maintaining a healthy state of mind, it is not just the pace of social media that is the problem, but the very nature of what we do on social media that can be harmful, if it’s not moderated. Social media invites us to present idealised images of ourselves to others. Curations of how we want others to see us, rather than accurate snapshots of who we really are. We posture, we pretend, we airbrush. We conceal ourselves in the garments of our online avatar. Posturing, isn’t itself something new, as social beings we have always sought to portray ourselves to others in an optimum light, even if it requires some self-concealment. The difference is that at the end of the day, one used to be able to come home both literally and figuratively, shedding one’s outward-facing garments. ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ was a place where one could be their true self without the need to impress or convince others. What is so troubling about 24 hour social media is that one never really comes home in the sense of being able to reveal, one’s true self. Such self-alienation can be soul destroying and it is little wonder that so many young people are pushed to the edge. But humans aren’t alone in seeking a place they might call home. Jewish mystical literature invokes the image of God seeking a home in our world. The mystics believe that God’s true identity is concealed in what they call vessels or garments, the outer core of which comprises the world of seemingly godless physical phenomena. We help make this physical world a home for God when we invite God’s presence into our lives. When godliness is revealed in the way we live, God as it were, comes out of hiding and is truly at home. In the mystic’s imagination we seek self-revelation because God seeks self-revelation, and we are made in God’s image. The spike in children contemplating taking their own life, is undoubtedly the result of many factors, but one cannot discount as a contributing element, the oppressiveness of having to be someone you are not without ever experiencing the relief of being the person you are. For this, one requires the warm, accepting and increasingly elusive environment we call home.