Does Internet help promote or prevent suicide?(2)
On the Internet one can find more information on how to commit suicide than how not to. Not only that, a British study found that half of the Internet sites that are dedicated to suicide related information promote the act. Only one in eight sites provides information on prevention.
The study used 12 suicide related terms on four difference search engines - Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Ask.com. They collected a total of 480 links - top ten from each search, and found 240 unique sites. Almost half of those 240 sites had information on suicide methods. One fifth of all 480 sites were primarily dedicated to suicide. Half of those dedicated sites were considered encouraging suicide, not trying to prevent it. Only 62 of the total 480 sites had information on prevention, and 59 sites clearly discouraged suicide. All the three sites that came up most frequently on the search encouraged the visitor to commit suicide.
It is depressing since people with suicidal thoughts may not reach out to other people and try to look for information on the Internet. And as it turns out they are most likely to find encouragement and not much help.
