SS04 - Media Reporting, Media Guidelines and Suicide: An Update on Recent Evidence
Self-Harm and Suicide-Related Content on TikTok: Implications and Mitigation StrategiesSelf-harm and suicide-related content on social media may contribute to increasing rates of self-harm and suicide among adolescents via social learning and social contagion, or The Werther Effect. The US Surgeon Generals Advisory on Social Media and Youth Mental Health states harmful content exposure as well as excessive and problematic social media use are primary areas of concern. Although TikTok is the fastest growing social media app among youth worldwide, there is virtually no research on the topic of TikTok and mental health among young people. This presentation will discuss the results of a thematic-analysis of self-harm and suicide-related content on TikTok. We will present the top ten most popular hashtags using a snowball hashtag sampling process, in addition to the results of a thematic analysis of 200 videos that were sampled according to each hashtag decreasing by rank (e.g., 29 videos for the most popular hashtag, 27 videos for the 2nd most popular hashtag). Finally, we will consider the interplay between our findings and recent trends in self-harm and suicide rates among adolescents, and possible mitigation strategies.