BENGALURU: Now with the influx of social media there’s nothing personal any more. From suicide notes to suicide videos, they are all posted up there – and a cause of deep concern for medical workers and psychiatrists, who say that social media has been an outlet for people who have mental health issues on a daily basis and if such videos and posts reach vulnerable people, thoughts of suicide might build up.
Psychiatrist Dr H. Chandrashekar from BMCRI points out, “The causes of suicide are multiple – they can be depression, disappointment, financial issues and so on. But some of them are triggered by media exposure, where the suicidal ones are shown as heroes. There is a sense of achievement. Again many vulnerable people are goaded by what is shown on the television, print media and social media and they might copy what they have just seen or heard and replicate that for multiple reasons.”
Studies show a majority of teenagers who attempted suicide knew someone who had already done it. There are many vulnerable people for whom images of suicide are traumatic reminders of a loved one’s death and these posts may trigger their own thoughts of suicide.
Psychologist Sunitha R from HSR Layout says, “It is important to keep such pictures and videos off Facebook and Twitter. There might be people who are considering suicide and nothing can be more risky than sending videos of death to such people.”
City psychologists feel there is complete lack of awareness of such matters among members of the public and so they are often insensitive towards such issues. Chandrashekar says, “There should be some restraint shown by the media on glorification of such incidents. The media should not go into too much detail explaining how the suicide was done.”
It is important that people stop tweeting and sharing about these posts or videos, stop talking about how these people died and focus instead on why they died, say mental health experts. They add, identifying the symptoms, and timely intervention is the key.
