Christopher Spriggs
Health Communication
Annotated Bibliography
Topic: Social Media and its Influence on Suicide
1. Shah, A. (2010). The relationship between general population suicide rates and the internet: a cross‐national study. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 40(2), 146-150.
Web sites and open forums on the internet have been reported both to encourage suicides while also having a positive beneficial effect on suicidal individuals. There is a scarcity of studies inspecting the part of the Internet in general population suicide rates. The association between general population suicide rates and the occurrence of Internet users was examined in a cross-national study using data from the World Health Organization and the United Nations Web sites. The pervasiveness of Internet users was pointedly and absolutely connected with general population suicide rates in both sexes. On numerous regression analysis the frequency of Internet users was independently associated with general population suicide rates in males, and this independent relationship in females approached statistical significance. Caution should be exercised in the attribution of a causal relationship and the direction of this relationship because of the cross-sectional and ecological study design whereby the findings are subject to ecological fallacy. However, the findings identify and support a need for further research. Like all research, saying something as 100% concrete is impossible. BUT, in the case of the internet, it’s clear that it can go both ways.
2. Ruder, T. D., Hatch, G. M., Ampanozi, G., Thali, M. J., & Fischer, N. (2011). Suicide announcement on Facebook. Crisis.
The media and the Internet may be influencing suicidal behavior. Social networks such as Facebook represent a new side of worldwide information transfer. The impression of these social networks on suicidal behavior has just begun to be evaluated and researched. This article discusses the potential effects of suicide notes on Facebook and suicide prevention. Topics like copycat suicides, and creating awareness among health care professionals is also discussed. The article presents a case involving a suicide note on Facebook and discusses the potential consequences. There are numerous reports of suicide notes on Facebook in the popular press, but none in the professional literature. Online social network users attempted to prevent planned suicides in several reported cases. To date there is no documented evidence of a copycat suicide, directly emulating a suicide announced on Facebook. Suicide notes on online social networks may allow for suicide prevention via the immediate intervention of other network users. But it is not yet clear to what extent suicide notes on online social networks actually induce copycat suicides. These effects deserve future evaluation and research
3. Jashinsky, J., Burton, S. H., Hanson, C. L., West, J., Giraud-Carrier, C., Barnes, M. D., & Argyle, T. (2014). Tracking suicide risk factors through Twitter in the US. Crisis.
Suicide is a leading cause of death in the United States. Social media such as Twitter is an developing tool that may help researchers in following suicide risk factors in real time. This article seeks to identify suicide-related risk factors through Twitter discussions by matching them to geographic suicide rates from statistics data. To do this, at-risk tweets were filtered from Twitter using keywords and sayings created and chosen by the researchers. Tweets were then organized by state. Suicidal tweets were then compared against national data of actual suicide rates from the CDC. Researchers sifted through 1,659,274 tweets, over a 3-month period identifying 37,717 as risky. The West and Mid-West had a higher percentage of suicide-related tweet than expected, while the reverse was true for South and other Eastern states. A strong correlation was observed between Twitter-derived data and actual age-adjusted suicide information. Twitter may be a practical tool for real-time monitoring of suicide risk factors on a large scale. This study demonstrates that individuals who are at risk for suicide could theoretically be pinpointed through social media networks like Twitter.
4. Daine, K., Hawton, K., Singaravelu, V., Stewart, A., Simkin, S., & Montgomery, P. (2013). The power of the web: a systematic review of studies of the influence of the internet on self-harm and suicide in young people. PloS one, 8(10), e77555.
There is concern that the internet is participating in a global rise of self-harm and suicide. In this study, researchers methodically evaluated and examined research literature to determine whether there is indication that the internet effects the risk of self-harm or suicide in young people. Youth who self-harm or are suicidal often turn to the internet for help or guidance. Usually used for positive reasons like seeking support and managing strategies, but may have a negative effect, normalizing self-harm and potentially eliminating disclosure or expert help. The internet has created networks of contact that can be abused to ‘cyber-bully’; both cyber-bullying and general internet use have been found to associate with augmented danger of self-harm, suicidal thoughts, and depression. Associations have also been found between internet exposure and intense approaches to self-harm. Internet use may apply both positive and negative effects on young people at risk of self-harm or suicide. Thorough research is needed to better understand how internet media may exert negative influences and should also focus on how the internet might be utilized to interfere with susceptible young people.
5. Recupero, P. R., Harms, S. E., & Noble, J. M. (2008). Googling suicide: surfing for suicide information on the Internet. The Journal of clinical psychiatry.
This piece observed the types of ways a suicidal person might discover ideas and harmful information through social media and search services like Google and Yahoo. The study paid special attention to determining the “convenience” of potentially harmful resources and websites, like pro-suicide discussion boards. These types of sites have been involved in accomplished suicides and authorities and researchers understand that they exist on the internet. Researchers used 5 common search engines (Google, Yahoo!, Ask.com, Lycos, and Dogpile) and 4 suicide-related search terms (suicide, how to commit suicide, suicide methods, and how to kill yourself), and then collected quantitative and qualitative data about the search results. The searches were done in August and September 2006. Search results were classified as being pro-suicide, anti-suicide, suicide-neutral, not a suicide site, or error (i.e., page would not load). Additional data was collected to further illustrate the nature of the material on these sites. They then found that “Suicide-neutral” and “anti-suicide” pages occurred most frequently (of 373 unique Web pages, 115 were coded as suicide-neutral, and 109 were anti-suicide). “Pro-suicide” resources were less frequent (41 Web pages), but were still easy to find and access. Detailed how-to instructions for uncommon and fatal suicide methods were also easy to find through searches. The researchers found that mental health professionals and parents could use internet history as evidence of potential thoughts in loved ones. Paying close attention to depressed, suicidal, or potentially suicidal patients who use the Internet because they’re more at risk. Despite popular belief internet usage could be more harmful than helpful.
6. Won, H. H., Myung, W., Song, G. Y., Lee, W. H., Kim, J. W., Carroll, B. J., & Kim, D. K. (2013). Predicting national suicide numbers with social media data. PloS one, 8(4), e61809.
Suicide is not only an individual occurrence, but it is also manipulated by social and biological issues. The high suicide rate and the plenty of social media data in South Korea, the researchers in the article calculated the potential of this new media (social media) for predicting completed suicides. They tested two social media variables (suicide-related and dysphoria-related weblog entries) along with classical social, economic and meteorological variables as predictors of suicide over 3 years (2008 through 2010). Both social media variables were strongly associated with suicide occurrence. The suicide variable showed high inconsistency and was reactive to celebrity suicide events, while the dysphoria variable showed longer nonspiritual trends, with lower irregularity. They interpreted these as reflections of social affect and social mood, respectively. In the final multivariate model, the two social media variables, especially the dysphoria variable, displaced two classical economic predictors – consumer price index and unemployment rate. The prediction model developed with the 2-year training data set (2008 through 2009) was validated in the data for 2010 and was robust in a sensitivity analysis controlling for celebrity suicide effects. These results indicate that social media data may be of value in national suicide forecasting and prevention.
7. Luxton, D. D., June, J. D., & Kinn, J. T. (2011). Technology-based suicide prevention: current applications and future directions. Telemedicine and e-Health, 17(1), 50-54.
This report on current and emerging methods for suicide prevention. Technology-based programs discussed include interactive educational and social networking Web sites, e-mail outreach, and programs that use mobile devices and texting. The article described innovative applications such as virtual worlds, gaming, and text analysis that are currently being developed and applied to suicide prevention and outreach programs. They also discussed the benefits and limitations of technology-based applications and discuss future directions for their use. Social media as a whole can be used (as other articles have mentioned) to track up until the last moments, the actions and reactions by at risk youth. Internet history, tech message conversations, all of it can help researchers, health professionals, and even teachers pin point problems. Forays into artificial intelligence, and other high tech alternatives can push these studies further in the right direction.
8. Eichenberg, C. (2008). Internet message boards for suicidal people: A typology of users. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 11(1), 107-113.
Clinical psychological dialogue contains a varied array of assessments of the risks and/or benefits of forums on the internet where individuals can debate their suicidal feelings. Public opinion contends they are harmful because obviously the suicide rate just continues to rise. To measure this statement, an online survey was conducted on a German message board for suicidal people. Three user types were identified with differing motives for visiting the forum and different usage effects of the message board. The results contradict the molds that suicide message boards are generally a source of potential harm and that they foster suicidal tendencies and point instead to their predominantly constructive or even suicide-preventive functions. These message boards are balanced by people seeking to help, and talk through peoples problems. Although the public would assume it’s a negative space, there’s even more positivity and success stories. Although Germany is different than the US or any other country, these studies can be used as an idea of what’s happening in the rest of the world.
9. Alao, A. O., Soderberg, M., Pohl, E. L., & Alao, A. L. (2006). Cybersuicide: review of the role of the internet on suicide. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 9(4), 489-493.
The internet as a general foundation of communication is already having a momentous effect in medicine and psychiatry. Although the internet has great potential in psychiatric education, clinical care, and research, its impact on social issues should not be underestimated. Firstly, the internet as a means of communication may encourage suicidal behavior by depicting ways by which suicide may be committed. People are actively seeing these routes that others take, and mimicking them. Secondly, some internet websites may discourage people with mental illness from seeking psychiatric help, condone suicide, and forbid entry to anyone offering to discourage users from committing suicide. Forums and what not, often encourage others to seek help from other users. This can be both positive and negative depending on the types of users. However, the internet could be a resource to help a potentially suicidal person get help, and can be used to identify those at risk for suicide, communicate with them, and potentially prevent suicide. If used appropriately, the internet is a powerful communication tool that can be used to benefit suicidal patients. Doctors, parents, and schools see that and although they are hesitant, have continued to try and accept it little by little.
10. Luxton, D. D., June, J. D., & Fairall, J. M. (2012). Social Media and Suicide: A Public Health Perspective. American Journal of Public Health, 102(Suppl 2), S195–S200. http://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2011.300608
According to this article, there is growing indication that the Internet and social media can effect suicide-related actions. Imperative issues are whether this influence has a substantial danger to the community and how public health approaches might be used to address the matter. To tackle these difficulties, this article provides an overview of ways that social media can influence suicidal behavior, both negatively and positively, and evaluates the evidence of the risk. The article also discusses the legal intricacies of this main topic and proposes future directions for research and prevention programs based on a public health perspective.