IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v253y2020ics0277953620301799.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Covariance in diurnal patterns of suicide-related expressions on Twitter and recorded suicide deaths

Author

Listed:
  • Fahey, Robert A.
  • Boo, Jeremy
  • Ueda, Michiko

Abstract

Social media data is increasingly used to gain insights into trends in mental health, but prior studies aimed at confirming a link between online expression of suicidal ideation on social media and actual suicide deaths have been inconclusive. Using comprehensive six-year data sets of Twitter posts and suicide deaths in Japan, we examine the diurnal relationship between the proportional incidence of a suicide-related keyword, “kietai” (“I want to disappear”), and suicide deaths with an OLS regression model. We also use co-occurrence analysis to reveal changes in the linguistic context of the suicide-related keyword at different hours of the day. We find a clear diurnal pattern in the use of this suicide-related keyword, peaking between 1am and 5am. This diurnal trend is positively correlated with suicide deaths among younger cohorts (ages 15 to 44), but the correlation is negative among older adults (45 and over). The correlation among young adults strengthens when a delay between tweet incidence and suicide deaths is included. Compared to daytime tweets, nighttime tweets exhibited a stronger relationship between words related to self-disgust and words directly indicating suicidal intent. This study confirms the hypothesised link between online suicidal ideation and suicide death. Despite frequent flippant use of the keyword, the consistent correlation and the diurnal changes in the context of the keyword's usage demonstrate the value of social media data to the study of mental health trends in groups at risk of suicide.

Suggested Citation

  • Fahey, Robert A. & Boo, Jeremy & Ueda, Michiko, 2020. "Covariance in diurnal patterns of suicide-related expressions on Twitter and recorded suicide deaths," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 253(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:253:y:2020:i:c:s0277953620301799
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.112960
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953620301799
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.112960?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ueda, Michiko & Mori, Kota & Matsubayashi, Tetsuya & Sawada, Yasuyuki, 2017. "Tweeting celebrity suicides: Users' reaction to prominent suicide deaths on Twitter and subsequent increases in actual suicides," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 189(C), pages 158-166.
    2. Hong-Hee Won & Woojae Myung & Gil-Young Song & Won-Hee Lee & Jong-Won Kim & Bernard J Carroll & Doh Kwan Kim, 2013. "Predicting National Suicide Numbers with Social Media Data," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(4), pages 1-6, April.
    3. Fahey, Robert A. & Matsubayashi, Tetsuya & Ueda, Michiko, 2018. "Tracking the Werther Effect on social media: Emotional responses to prominent suicide deaths on twitter and subsequent increases in suicide," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 219(C), pages 19-29.
    4. Arendt, Florian & Haim, Mario & Scherr, Sebastian, 2020. "Investigating Google's suicide-prevention efforts in celebrity suicides using agent-based testing: A cross-national study in four European countries," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 262(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jingfang Liu & Mengshi Shi & Huihong Jiang, 2022. "Detecting Suicidal Ideation in Social Media: An Ensemble Method Based on Feature Fusion," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(13), pages 1-13, July.
    2. Xu, Zhongzhi & Xu, Yucan & Cheung, Florence & Cheng, Mabel & Lung, Daniel & Law, Yik Wa & Chiang, Byron & Zhang, Qingpeng & Yip, Paul S.F., 2021. "Detecting suicide risk using knowledge-aware natural language processing and counseling service data," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 283(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Paul S. F. Yip & Edward Pinkney, 2022. "Social media and suicide in social movements: a case study in Hong Kong," Journal of Computational Social Science, Springer, vol. 5(1), pages 1023-1040, May.
    2. Vikas Menon & Sujita Kumar Kar & Marthoenis Marthoenis & SM Yasir Arafat & Ginni Sharma & Charanya Kaliamoorthy & Ramdas Ransing & Srijeeta Mukherjee & Jigyansa Ipsita Pattnaik & Nikhilesh B Shirahatt, 2021. "Is there any link between celebrity suicide and further suicidal behaviour in India?," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 67(5), pages 453-460, August.
    3. Daniel Ownby & P. Wesley Routon, 2020. "Tragedy Following Tragedies: Estimating the Copycat Effect of Media-Covered Suicide in the Age of Digital News," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 65(2), pages 312-329, October.
    4. Arendt, Florian & Haim, Mario & Scherr, Sebastian, 2020. "Investigating Google's suicide-prevention efforts in celebrity suicides using agent-based testing: A cross-national study in four European countries," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 262(C).
    5. Fahey, Robert A. & Matsubayashi, Tetsuya & Ueda, Michiko, 2018. "Tracking the Werther Effect on social media: Emotional responses to prominent suicide deaths on twitter and subsequent increases in suicide," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 219(C), pages 19-29.
    6. Schaer, Oliver & Kourentzes, Nikolaos & Fildes, Robert, 2019. "Demand forecasting with user-generated online information," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 197-212.
    7. Phillip Cheuk Fung Law & Lay San Too & Nicole T. M. Hill & Jo Robinson & Madelyn Gould & Jo-An Occhipinti & Matthew J. Spittal & Katrina Witt & Mark Sinyor & Benedikt Till & Nathaniel Osgood & Ante Pr, 2021. "A Pilot Case-Control Study of the Social Media Activity Following Cluster and Non-Cluster Suicides in Australia," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(1), pages 1-15, December.
    8. Youngdon Kim & Woojae Myung & Hong-Hee Won & Sanghong Shim & Hong Jin Jeon & Junbae Choi & Bernard J Carroll & Doh Kwan Kim, 2015. "Association between Air Pollution and Suicide in South Korea: A Nationwide Study," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(2), pages 1-10, February.
    9. Maryam Ayub & Bariah Rafiq & Sania Mumtaz Tahir & Nazish Imran & Sadiq Naveed & Imran Ijaz Haider, 2023. "Assessing the quality of media reporting of suicide deaths in Pakistan against international guidelines," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 69(2), pages 406-411, March.
    10. Woojae Myung & Geung-Hee Lee & Hong-Hee Won & Maurizio Fava & David Mischoulon & Maren Nyer & Doh Kwan Kim & Jung-Yoon Heo & Hong Jin Jeon, 2015. "Paraquat Prohibition and Change in the Suicide Rate and Methods in South Korea," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(6), pages 1-10, June.
    11. Helen Christensen & Philip J. Batterham & Bridianne O'Dea, 2014. "E-Health Interventions for Suicide Prevention," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 11(8), pages 1-20, August.
    12. Lythreatis, Sophie & Singh, Sanjay Kumar & El-Kassar, Abdul-Nasser, 2022. "The digital divide: A review and future research agenda," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 175(C).
    13. Lutter, Mark & Roex, Karlijn L.A. & Tisch, Daria, 2020. "Anomie or imitation? The Werther effect of celebrity suicides on suicide rates in 34 OECD countries, 1960–2014," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 246(C).
    14. Hyekyung Woo & Youngtae Cho & Eunyoung Shim & Kihwang Lee & Gilyoung Song, 2015. "Public Trauma after the Sewol Ferry Disaster: The Role of Social Media in Understanding the Public Mood," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 12(9), pages 1-10, September.
    15. Joseph Gibbons & Robert Malouf & Brian Spitzberg & Lourdes Martinez & Bruce Appleyard & Caroline Thompson & Atsushi Nara & Ming-Hsiang Tsou, 2019. "Twitter-based measures of neighborhood sentiment as predictors of residential population health," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(7), pages 1-19, July.
    16. Wilfred Hing-Sang Wong & James Chun-Yin Lee & Frederick Ka-Wing Ho & Tim Man-Ho Li & Patrick Ip & Chun-Bong Chow, 2017. "Stock Market Fluctuations and Self-Harm among Children and Adolescents in Hong Kong," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 14(6), pages 1-9, June.
    17. Qingguo Ma & Wuke Zhang, 2015. "Public Mood and Consumption Choices: Evidence from Sales of Sony Cameras on Taobao," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(4), pages 1-11, April.
    18. Yukie Sano & Hideki Takayasu & Shlomo Havlin & Misako Takayasu, 2019. "Identifying long-term periodic cycles and memories of collective emotion in online social media," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(3), pages 1-17, March.
    19. He Li & Yujin Han & Yunyu Xiao & Xingyun Liu & Ang Li & Tingshao Zhu, 2021. "Suicidal Ideation Risk and Socio-Cultural Factors in China: A Longitudinal Study on Social Media from 2010 to 2018," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(3), pages 1-12, January.
    20. Arendt, Florian & Forrai, Michaela & Findl, Oliver, 2020. "Dealing with negative reviews on physician-rating websites: An experimental test of how physicians can prevent reputational damage via effective response strategies," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 266(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:253:y:2020:i:c:s0277953620301799. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.