Death by Twitter! Morbid media microblog fascination continues

Death by Twitter!  Or so this newspaper account suggests.

Twitter bath death

(We start off by mixing the salacious with the cybercultural)
The Austrian Times goes on:

A teenage girl was electrocuted after dropping her laptop into the bath as she twittered in the tub.

Police said they believed Maria Barbu, 17, had tried to plug in her laptop with wet hands after the battery died during a long session on social networking site Twitter as she took a soak at her home in Brasov, central Romania.

Several fearsome media details to note here.  First, the association of youth with new technology.  The unsettling powers teens and younger have is a classic anxiety form.

Second, the emphasis on one technology (Twitter) over others equally important for the event (laptop, indoor plumbing).  Part of this involves freeing up the event from history - i.e., no mention of the standard death by combining electrical appliances with bathroom water.

(thanks to Ton Zylstra!)

Comments

[Ton Zijlstra]

Hi Bryan,

It seems to be a hoax story as well. No sign of it in the Romanian press, Romanian friends tell me. Which leads to the question why this is surfacing and reported as it is.

[Ton Zijlstra]

Searched some more and found this report in Romanian. There the girl has a different name though.

[Professional School of Psychology]

Unbelievable!

[Mike]

Hi Bryan,

I've been a fan of your blog for a while now, but this comment is a first for me.

It is pretty interesting to note that they don't mention any data on these kinds of electrocution deaths associated with other technologies (radio, tv, toaster).

There is a culture of people who are spending much too much time on twitter, but if used in the right way; it really can be a tool for education and self betterment.

[Bryan Alexander]

You know why it's being copied around, Ton. Fearsome internet sells. :)