Mark Sinyor1,2, Marissa Williams1,3, Rabia Zaheer1,4, Raisa Loureiro1, Jane Pirkis5, Marnin J Heisel6, Ayal Schaffer1,2, Donald A Redelmeier7,8,9,10, Amy H Cheung1,2, Thomas Niederkrotenthaler11. 1. Department of Psychiatry, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Toronto, ON, Canada. 2. Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada. 3. Graduate Centre for Applied Psychology, Athabasca University, Athabasca, AB, Canada. 4. Faculty of Applied Health Sciences, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada. 5. Centre for Mental Health, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia. 6. Departments of Psychiatry and of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada. 7. Department of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada. 8. Sunnybrook Research Institute, Toronto, ON, Canada. 9. Division of General Internal Medicine, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Toronto, ON, Canada. 10. Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences, Toronto, ON, Canada. 11. Unit Suicide Research & Mental Health Promotion, Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, Center for Public Health, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
Abstract
OBJECTIVE: A growing body of research has established that specific elements of suicide-related news reporting can be associated with increased or decreased subsequent suicide rates. This has not been systematically investigated for social media. The aim of this study was to identify associations between specific social media content and suicide deaths. METHODS: Suicide-related tweets (n = 787) geolocated to Toronto, Canada and originating from the highest level influencers over a 1-year period (July 2015 to June 2016) were coded for general, putatively harmful and putatively protective content. Multivariable logistic regression was used to examine whether tweet characteristics were associated with increases or decreases in suicide deaths in Toronto in the 7 days after posting, compared with a 7-day control window. RESULTS: Elements independently associated with increased subsequent suicide counts were tweets about the suicide of a local newspaper reporter (OR = 5.27, 95% CI = [1.27, 21.99]), 'other' social causes of suicide (e.g. cultural, relational, legal problems; OR = 2.39, 95% CI = [1.17, 4.86]), advocacy efforts (OR = 2.34, 95% CI = [1.48, 3.70]) and suicide death (OR = 1.52, 95% CI = [1.07, 2.15]). Elements most strongly independently associated with decreased subsequent suicides were tweets about murder suicides (OR = 0.02, 95% CI = [0.002, 0.17]) and suicide in first responders (OR = 0.17, 95% CI = [0.05, 0.52]). CONCLUSIONS: These findings largely comport with the theory of suicide contagion and associations observed with traditional news media. They specifically suggest that tweets describing suicide deaths and/or sensationalized news stories may be harmful while those that present suicide as undesirable, tragic and/or preventable may be helpful. These results suggest that social media is both an important exposure and potential avenue for intervention.
OBJECTIVE: A growing body of research has established that specific elements of suicide-related news reporting can be associated with increased or decreased subsequent suicide rates. This has not been systematically investigated for social media. The aim of this study was to identify associations between specific social media content and suicide deaths. METHODS: Suicide-related tweets (n = 787) geolocated to Toronto, Canada and originating from the highest level influencers over a 1-year period (July 2015 to June 2016) were coded for general, putatively harmful and putatively protective content. Multivariable logistic regression was used to examine whether tweet characteristics were associated with increases or decreases in suicide deaths in Toronto in the 7 days after posting, compared with a 7-day control window. RESULTS: Elements independently associated with increased subsequent suicide counts were tweets about the suicide of a local newspaper reporter (OR = 5.27, 95% CI = [1.27, 21.99]), 'other' social causes of suicide (e.g. cultural, relational, legal problems; OR = 2.39, 95% CI = [1.17, 4.86]), advocacy efforts (OR = 2.34, 95% CI = [1.48, 3.70]) and suicide death (OR = 1.52, 95% CI = [1.07, 2.15]). Elements most strongly independently associated with decreased subsequent suicides were tweets about murder suicides (OR = 0.02, 95% CI = [0.002, 0.17]) and suicide in first responders (OR = 0.17, 95% CI = [0.05, 0.52]). CONCLUSIONS: These findings largely comport with the theory of suicide contagion and associations observed with traditional news media. They specifically suggest that tweets describing suicide deaths and/or sensationalized news stories may be harmful while those that present suicide as undesirable, tragic and/or preventable may be helpful. These results suggest that social media is both an important exposure and potential avenue for intervention.
Authors: Phillip Cheuk Fung Law; Lay San Too; Nicole T M Hill; Jo Robinson; Madelyn Gould; Jo-An Occhipinti; Matthew J Spittal; Katrina Witt; Mark Sinyor; Benedikt Till; Nathaniel Osgood; Ante Prodan; Rifat Zahan; Jane Pirkis Journal: Int J Environ Res Public Health Date: 2021-12-29 Impact factor: 3.390