{"id":9691,"date":"2017-08-02T18:28:22","date_gmt":"2017-08-02T18:28:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=9691"},"modified":"2017-08-03T18:30:16","modified_gmt":"2017-08-03T18:30:16","slug":"why-the-creators-of-13-reasons-why-should-pay-attention-to-the-spike-in-suicide-related-google-searches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/why-the-creators-of-13-reasons-why-should-pay-attention-to-the-spike-in-suicide-related-google-searches\/","title":{"rendered":"Why the creators of ’13 Reasons Why’ should pay attention to the spike in suicide-related Google searches"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jon-Patrick Allem<\/a>, University of Southern California<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Does it matter that people seem to have become more interested in suicide \u2013 expressing more suicidal thoughts, while becoming more likely to research ways to commit or prevent suicide \u2013 in the wake of the popular Netflix series \u201c13 Reasons Why\u201d?<\/p>\n

According to new research<\/a> my colleagues and I conducted, suicide-related Google searches increased in the weeks following the spring release of the popular Netflix series \u201c13 Reasons Why.\u201d <\/p>\n

The show \u2013 which became the streaming service\u2019s most discussed series on social media<\/a> \u2013 chronicles a high school girl\u2019s suicide over the course of 13 episodes. In the season finale, the suicide is depicted in a three-minute scene.<\/p>\n

Singer Selena Gomez, the executive producer of the show, said<\/a> she hoped the series would raise suicide awareness. Yet some \u2013 including educators and school psychologists<\/a> \u2013 fear the series glamorizes the victim and her suicide in a way that could promote copycat behavior. <\/p>\n

In recent months, stories about the possible effects of the series have circulated in the media. In May, The Washington Post reported<\/a> that school administrators in Florida were witnessing more risky behaviors among their students, from self-mutilation to suicide threats. In June, People magazine told the story<\/a> of a young man in Peru who took his own life, leaving behind recordings in a way that mimicked the main character in the series. <\/p>\n

Our study adds to this discussion by considering a novel source: search data. Because the internet is a place where people can anonymously search for information free of judgment, researchers can see what\u2019s on the mind of the public by monitoring what they\u2019re searching. <\/p>\n

For this reason, my colleagues and I will often turn to the internet to track real-time trends in mental heath<\/a> and other health concerns<\/a> in order to better understand how the public is thinking, feeling and behaving. (For example, earlier this year we demonstrated that Charlie Sheen\u2019s HIV disclosure in 2015 corresponded with record levels of interest in HIV testing<\/a>, which showed search trends could signal concrete prevention outcomes.)<\/p>\n

With \u201c13 Reasons Why,\u201d we wanted to see how the content and volume of internet searches about suicide changed after the series\u2019 release. We analyzed suicide-related searches from March 31, the day the series was released, to April 18, the day before former NFL star Aaron Hernandez committed suicide in prison<\/a> (a national news event that likely caused suicide-related searches to spike on its own). Then we compared these results to the expected search volumes had the series never been released, figures we arrived at by analyzing daily search trends between January 15 and March 30. <\/p>\n

Compared to the searches between January and March, searches that signaled suicide awareness (terms such as \u201csuicide prevention\u201d) and suicidal ideation (terms such as \u201chow to commit suicide\u201d) increased following the release of \u201c13 Reasons Why.\u201d People were also more likely to use search terms like \u201cteen suicide,\u201d \u201csuicidal thoughts\u201d and \u201chow to kill yourself.\u201d <\/p>\n

Together, suicide searches were 19 percent higher for the 19 days following the series\u2019 release compared to the period before the release. That figure reflects over one million more searches than what would have normally been expected. <\/p>\n

While heightened suicide awareness can be a good thing, the spike in searches that indicate suicidal ideation, from ways to commit suicide to suicidal thoughts, could signal a more disturbing trend. Prior research<\/a> has shown that suicide search trends are correlated with actual suicides, and media coverage<\/a> of suicides concur with increased suicide attempts.<\/p>\n

While we don\u2019t know whether any specific search preceded an actual suicide attempt, the trends we found in search data suggest that the show\u2019s creators probably have an obligation to mitigate suicidal ideation in the future. <\/p>\n

Netflix did give \u201c13 Reasons Why\u201d a TV-MA rating, and a few episodes did have specific warnings for explicit material.<\/p>\n

But if they want to go further, they could follow the World Health Organization\u2019s media guidelines<\/a> for preventing suicide by removing the scenes that depict the actual suicide. They could also display suicide hotline numbers at the start of each episode. These suggestions could be retrofitted to season one and considered prior to the release of the second season<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\"TheEither way, the findings underscore the value of big data from online social systems. Whether it\u2019s searches about suicide, HIV testing or other health concerns, the rapid and reliable information from search engines can make public health agencies more responsive to the populations they serve.<\/p>\n

Jon-Patrick Allem<\/a>, Research Scientist, University of Southern California<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

This article was originally published on The Conversation<\/a>. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jon-Patrick Allem, University of Southern California Does it matter that people seem to have become more interested in suicide \u2013 expressing more suicidal thoughts, while becoming more likely to research ways to commit or prevent suicide \u2013 in the wake of the popular Netflix series \u201c13 Reasons Why\u201d? According to new research my colleagues and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":9692,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[293],"tags":[2880,619,308,652,1825,593,1929,2879,536],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9691"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9691"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9691\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9693,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9691\/revisions\/9693"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}