Citation

Arendt F, Scherr S, Romer D. New Media Society 2019; 21(11-12): 2422-2442.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/1461444819850106

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Suicide is a leading cause of death among youth, and media depictions of suicidal behavior can be a contributing risk factor. Of interest, Instagram recently received more scholarly attention due to its large number of publicly available, explicit, and graphic depictions of self-harm. Importantly, researchers have hypothesized that exposure to this content could be a risk for self-harm and suicide in vulnerable audiences. We tested this hypothesis using a two-wave US panel survey among young adults (N = 729). Analyses indicated that exposure to self-harm on Instagram was associated with suicidal ideation, self-harm, and emotional disturbance even controlling for exposure to other sources with similar content. As hypothesized, exposure to self-harm on Instagram at the first wave prospectively predicted self-harm and suicidality-related outcomes at the second wave 1 month later. These findings provide evidence that such exposure can lead to contagion in vulnerable users. Implications are discussed. © The Author(s) 2019.

Language: en

Keywords

suicide; self-harm; Werther effect; social media; young adults; Instagram; suicide contagion