An evaluation of the Boys Do Cry suicide prevention media campaign on Twitter: Mixed methods approach

Background: In most countries, men are more likely to die by suicide than women. Adherence to dominant masculine norms, such as being self-reliant, is linked to suicide in men in Western cultures. We created a suicide prevention media campaign, “Boys Do Cry,” designed to challenge the “self-reliance” norm and encourage help-seeking in men. A music […]

The effects of social media addiction, psychological distress, and loneliness on suicide ideations and attempts among healthcare professionals in Saudi Arabia

Introduction: Recently, there has been an alarming increase in psychological distress in many populations. One of the reasons can be attributed to the rapid development of technology and social media, which could adversely affect the mental health of individuals, including those working in healthcare. This study aimed to assess the influence of social media addiction, […]

Ethical suicide prevention in an artificial intelligence driven society

Objective To explore the drivers, objectives and challenges for ethical artificial intelligence-based suicide prevention in a technologically evolving clinical and societal context. Method Narrative selected literature review. Results There is an ethical need for more effective suicide prevention that is aware of the limitations of prediction. AI research needs to recognise the importance of clinical […]

Assessing vulnerability to surges in suicide-related tweets using Japan census data: Case-only study

Background: As the use of social media becomes more widespread, its impact on health cannot be ignored. However, limited research has been conducted on the relationship between social media and suicide. Little is known about individuals’ vulnerable to suicide, especially when social media suicide information is extremely prevalent. Objective: This study aims to identify the […]

Differences in suicide-related Twitter content according to user influence

Background: The content of suicide-specific social media posts may impact suicide rates, and putatively harmful and/or protective content may vary by the author’s influence. Aims: This study sought to characterize how suicide-related Twitter content differs according to user influence. Method: Suicide-related tweets from July 1, 2015, to June 1, 2016, geolocated to Toronto, Canada, were collected and randomly selected for […]

Live streaming of suicide on Facebook

A 35-year-old married male (father of two children) live streamed his hanging in a 3 min 46 s video. He was alone at home when he did this act, after bolting it from inside. The victim live-streamed his suicide probably to send a message to his loved ones, who might want to see him in his last […]

Social media use and sleep outcomes among adolescents at high risk for suicide

Sleep is a modifiable risk factor for suicidal thoughts and behaviors in adolescents, and social media use may be one factor linked to sleep outcomes. The current study examined self-reported subjective daytime and nighttime social media use (SMU) as a predictor of both subjective and objectively- captured sleep (timing, duration, and quality) among adolescents at […]

Public surveillance of social media for suicide using advanced deep learning models in Japan: Time series study from 2012 to 2022

Background: Social media platforms have been increasingly used to express suicidal thoughts, feelings, and acts, raising public concerns over time. A large body of literature has explored the suicide risks identified by people’s expressions on social media. However, there is not enough evidence to conclude that social media provides public surveillance for suicide without aligning suicide […]

Feasibility of emotions as features for suicide ideation detection in social media

Suicide-related social media message detection is an important issue. Such messages can reveal a warning sign of suicidal behaviour. This paper examines the efficacy of using emotions as sole features to detect suicide-related messages. We investigated two methods which use a single emotion and a set of seven emotions as features respectively. For emotion classification, […]

Public surveillance of social media for suicide using advanced deep learning models in Japan: Time series study from 2012 to 2022

Background: Social media platforms have been increasingly used to express suicidal thoughts, feelings, and acts, raising public concerns over time. A large body of literature has explored the suicide risks identified by people’s expressions on social media. However, there is not enough evidence to conclude that social media provides public surveillance for suicide without aligning […]

Suicide risk in emerging adulthood: Associations with screen time over 10 years

Suicide rates have increased over the past decade, and screen media (and social media in particular) are often blamed for this marked increase. However, there is little longitudinal research on this topic. The current study examined the link between various types of screen media use over a 10-year period (from adolescence to emerging adulthood) to […]

An investigation of suicidal ideation from social media using machine learning approach

Despite improvements in the detection and treatment of severe mental disorders, suicide remains a significant public health concern. Suicide prevention and control initiatives can benefit greatly from a thorough comprehension and foreseeability of suicide patterns. Understanding suicide patterns, especially through social media data analysis, can help in suicide prevention and control efforts. The objective of […]

ChatGPT for suicide risk assessment on social media: Quantitative evaluation of model performance, potentials and limitations

This paper presents a novel framework for quantitatively evaluating the interactive ChatGPT model in the context of suicidality assessment from social media posts, utilizing the University of Maryland Reddit suicidality dataset. We conduct a technical evaluation of ChatGPT’s performance on this task using Zero-Shot and Few-Shot experiments and compare its results with those of two […]

Young people’s reasons for feeling suicidal: An analysis of posts to a social media suicide prevention forum

Background: While considerable attention has been given to explanations for youth suicide, less is known about the reasons that young people themselves give for suicidality. Research on online communications gives an opportunity to investigate the real-time reasons young people give for feeling suicidal. Aims: This study aimed to identify the reasons that young people provide for feeling suicidal […]

Types of stressors on nonprofessional against-suicide and pro-suicide message boards: Content analysis

Background: Little is known about presenting problems of primary posters (i.e., posters opening the thread) and their responders in nonprofessional against-suicide and pro-suicide message boards. Aims: We aimed to compare problems described in suicide message boards between different types of users (primary posters and respondents) and between against-suicide, neutral, and pro-suicide message boards. Method: In all, 1,182 archival threads with […]

Multi-task learning to detect suicide ideation and mental disorders among social media users

Mental disorders and suicide are considered global health problems faced by many countries worldwide. Even though advancements have been made to improve mental wellbeing through research, there is room for improvement. Using Artificial Intelligence to early detect individuals susceptible to mental illness and suicide ideation based on their social media postings is one way to […]

Health advisory on social media use in adolescence

Psychological scientists examine potential beneficial and harmful effects of social mediaa use on adolescents’ social, educational, psychological, and neurological development. This is a rapidly evolving and growing area of research with implications for many stakeholders (e.g., youth, parents, caregivers, educators, policymakers, practitioners, and members of the tech industry) who share responsibility to ensure adolescents’ well-being.b Officials and […]

Suicide prevention outreach on social media delivered by trained volunteers: A qualitative study

Background: There is a need to develop new ways to reach and engage people at risk for suicidal behavior. Suicide prevention outreach on social media (SPOSM) represents a promising strategy, and trained volunteers could potentially provide the needed human resources. Aims: We aimed to investigate users’ perception of SPOSM delivered by volunteers of the Israeli Sahar organization and […]

Public surveillance of social media for suicide using advanced deep learning models in Japan: Time series study from 2012 to 2022

Background: Social media platforms have been increasingly used to express suicidal thoughts, feelings, and acts, raising public concerns over time. A large body of literature has explored the suicide risks identified by people’s expressions on social media. However, there is not enough evidence to conclude that social media provides public surveillance for suicide without aligning […]

Acceptability and potential impact of the #chatsafe suicide postvention response among young people who have been exposed to suicide: Pilot study

Background: Young people are more likely to be affected by suicide contagion, and there are concerns about the role social media plays in the development and maintenance of suicide clusters or in facilitating imitative suicidal behavior. However, social media also presents an opportunity to provide real-time and age-appropriate suicide prevention information, which could be an […]

Social media and youth mental health: The U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory

This Advisory describes the current evidence on the impacts of social media on the mental health of children and adolescents. It states that we cannot conclude social media is sufficiently safe for children and adolescents and outlines immediate steps we can take to mitigate the risk of harm to children and adolescents.

Tracking suicide risk factors through Twitter in the US

Background: Suicide is a leading cause of death in the United States. Social media such as Twitter is an emerging surveillance tool that may assist researchers in tracking suicide risk factors in real time. Aims: To identify suicide-related risk factors through Twitter conversations by matching on geographic suicide rates from vital statistics data. Method: At-risk tweets were filtered […]

Responses to a self-presented suicide attempt in social media: A social network analysis

Background: The self-presentation of suicidal acts in social media has become a public health concern. Aims: This article centers on a Chinese microblogger who posted a wrist-cutting picture that was widely circulated in Chinese social media in 2011. This exploratory study examines written reactions of a group of Chinese microbloggers exposed to the post containing a self-harming […]