Niall Boyce reports on increasing efforts to understand the path that people with suicidal thoughts browse online, and to work out when and how to intervene. Samaritans founder Chad Varah was that most British of things: an old-fashioned gentleman with a pronounced enthusiasm for the modern world. Besides his work in suicide prevention, he promoted progressive attitudes towards sex education in Picture Post, and was the astronautical consultant to Dan Dare, the “Pilot of the Future” whose exploits thrilled the readers of the Eagle. So it is fair to say he would have approved of the latest innovation by Samaritans: a box with the organisation's helpline number (08457 90 90 90) that appears at the top of the page in response to searches for terms relating to suicide on Google UK. It has been there since November 2010: a small change, but a significant one. This is not by any means the organisation's first foray into cyberspace—that came as far back as 1992 with the piloting of the jo@samaritans.org email address—but it represents an important advance in the way Samaritans engages with the public, and an indication that it is keen to address the challenges posed by a future spent more and more online.
Language: en
LA - en SN - 0140-6736 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(10)62199-X ID - ref1 ER -