Suicide prevention and emergent media: Surfing the opportunity

At the recent 2011 IASP conference in Beijing and at the European Symposium on Suicide and Suicidal Behavior (ESSSB) in Rome in 2010, there were lively sessions that demonstrated the surge of interest in the role of newer media in the etiology of suicidal behaviors and as potential tools in suicide prevention. A search of PubMed using the terms “suicide” and “internet” revealed at least 57 peer-reviewed studies between 2009 and the present – a sharp increase compared to the 99 studies published in the decade from 1998 to 2008. This signals a refreshing attitude to what we are still calling “new media” despite the presence of at least the Internet in daily life for some 15 years. Because of their constantly evolving nature, we refer to these “newer” media types as “emergent media” throughout this editorial.