Examining the Self-Harm and Suicide Contagion Effects of the Blue Whale Challenge on YouTube and Twitter: Qualitative Study
BACKGROUND: Research suggests that direct exposure to suicidal behaviors and acts of self-harm through social media may increase suicidality through imitation and modeling, particularly in more vulnerable populations. One example of a social media phenomenon that demonstrates how self-harming behavi...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:7312265 2023-05-15T15:45:05+02:00 Examining the Self-Harm and Suicide Contagion Effects of the Blue Whale Challenge on YouTube and Twitter: Qualitative Study Khasawneh, Amro Chalil Madathil, Kapil Dixon, Emma Wiśniewski, Pamela Zinzow, Heidi Roth, Rebecca 2020-06-05 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7312265/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32515741 https://doi.org/10.2196/15973 en eng JMIR Publications http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7312265/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32515741 http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/15973 ©Amro Khasawneh, Kapil Chalil Madathil, Emma Dixon, Pamela Wiśniewski, Heidi Zinzow, Rebecca Roth. Originally published in JMIR Mental Health (http://mental.jmir.org), 29.05.2020. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in JMIR Mental Health, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on http://mental.jmir.org/, as well as this copyright and license information must be included. CC-BY JMIR Ment Health Original Paper Text 2020 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.2196/15973 2020-07-19T00:17:35Z BACKGROUND: Research suggests that direct exposure to suicidal behaviors and acts of self-harm through social media may increase suicidality through imitation and modeling, particularly in more vulnerable populations. One example of a social media phenomenon that demonstrates how self-harming behavior could potentially be propagated is the blue whale challenge. In this challenge, adolescents and young adults are encouraged to engage in self-harm and eventually kill themselves. OBJECTIVE: This paper aimed to investigate the way individuals portray the blue whale challenge on social media, with an emphasis on factors that could pose a risk to vulnerable populations. METHODS: We first used a thematic analysis approach to code 60 publicly posted YouTube videos, 1112 comments on those videos, and 150 Twitter posts that explicitly referenced the blue whale challenge. We then deductively coded the YouTube videos based on the Suicide Prevention Resource Center (SPRC) safe messaging guidelines as a metric for the contagion risk associated with each video. RESULTS: The thematic analysis revealed that social media users post about the blue whale challenge to raise awareness and discourage participation, express sorrow for the participants, criticize the participants, or describe a relevant experience. The deductive coding of the YouTube videos showed that most of the videos violated at least 50% of the SPRC safe and effective messaging guidelines. CONCLUSIONS: These posts might have the problematic effect of normalizing the blue whale challenge through repeated exposure, modeling, and reinforcement of self-harming and suicidal behaviors, especially among vulnerable populations such as adolescents. More effort is needed to educate social media users and content generators on safe messaging guidelines and factors that encourage versus discourage contagion effects. Text Blue whale PubMed Central (PMC) JMIR Mental Health 7 6 e15973 |
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Original Paper Khasawneh, Amro Chalil Madathil, Kapil Dixon, Emma Wiśniewski, Pamela Zinzow, Heidi Roth, Rebecca Examining the Self-Harm and Suicide Contagion Effects of the Blue Whale Challenge on YouTube and Twitter: Qualitative Study |
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Original Paper |
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BACKGROUND: Research suggests that direct exposure to suicidal behaviors and acts of self-harm through social media may increase suicidality through imitation and modeling, particularly in more vulnerable populations. One example of a social media phenomenon that demonstrates how self-harming behavior could potentially be propagated is the blue whale challenge. In this challenge, adolescents and young adults are encouraged to engage in self-harm and eventually kill themselves. OBJECTIVE: This paper aimed to investigate the way individuals portray the blue whale challenge on social media, with an emphasis on factors that could pose a risk to vulnerable populations. METHODS: We first used a thematic analysis approach to code 60 publicly posted YouTube videos, 1112 comments on those videos, and 150 Twitter posts that explicitly referenced the blue whale challenge. We then deductively coded the YouTube videos based on the Suicide Prevention Resource Center (SPRC) safe messaging guidelines as a metric for the contagion risk associated with each video. RESULTS: The thematic analysis revealed that social media users post about the blue whale challenge to raise awareness and discourage participation, express sorrow for the participants, criticize the participants, or describe a relevant experience. The deductive coding of the YouTube videos showed that most of the videos violated at least 50% of the SPRC safe and effective messaging guidelines. CONCLUSIONS: These posts might have the problematic effect of normalizing the blue whale challenge through repeated exposure, modeling, and reinforcement of self-harming and suicidal behaviors, especially among vulnerable populations such as adolescents. More effort is needed to educate social media users and content generators on safe messaging guidelines and factors that encourage versus discourage contagion effects. |
format |
Text |
author |
Khasawneh, Amro Chalil Madathil, Kapil Dixon, Emma Wiśniewski, Pamela Zinzow, Heidi Roth, Rebecca |
author_facet |
Khasawneh, Amro Chalil Madathil, Kapil Dixon, Emma Wiśniewski, Pamela Zinzow, Heidi Roth, Rebecca |
author_sort |
Khasawneh, Amro |
title |
Examining the Self-Harm and Suicide Contagion Effects of the Blue Whale Challenge on YouTube and Twitter: Qualitative Study |
title_short |
Examining the Self-Harm and Suicide Contagion Effects of the Blue Whale Challenge on YouTube and Twitter: Qualitative Study |
title_full |
Examining the Self-Harm and Suicide Contagion Effects of the Blue Whale Challenge on YouTube and Twitter: Qualitative Study |
title_fullStr |
Examining the Self-Harm and Suicide Contagion Effects of the Blue Whale Challenge on YouTube and Twitter: Qualitative Study |
title_full_unstemmed |
Examining the Self-Harm and Suicide Contagion Effects of the Blue Whale Challenge on YouTube and Twitter: Qualitative Study |
title_sort |
examining the self-harm and suicide contagion effects of the blue whale challenge on youtube and twitter: qualitative study |
publisher |
JMIR Publications |
publishDate |
2020 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7312265/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32515741 https://doi.org/10.2196/15973 |
genre |
Blue whale |
genre_facet |
Blue whale |
op_source |
JMIR Ment Health |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7312265/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32515741 http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/15973 |
op_rights |
©Amro Khasawneh, Kapil Chalil Madathil, Emma Dixon, Pamela Wiśniewski, Heidi Zinzow, Rebecca Roth. Originally published in JMIR Mental Health (http://mental.jmir.org), 29.05.2020. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in JMIR Mental Health, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on http://mental.jmir.org/, as well as this copyright and license information must be included. |
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CC-BY |
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https://doi.org/10.2196/15973 |
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JMIR Mental Health |
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