More fear of the internet causing offline horror: some American academics are investigating the possibility that internet suicide fora encourage people to kill themselves.
There's a policy angle lurking in this approach, at least in that UPI article's discussion of it:
Ilene Berson, an associate professor at the university's Florida Mental Health Institute, said the Internet does not have the kind of censoring newspapers and broadcasters do, where news stories about suicides are sometimes played down for fear of inspiring copycats.
The cyberspace-suicide meme turns out to be a durable one. We've noted it since 2004, starting with Japan, then moving on to Britain, Israel, and America. But John Varley may have gotten to it first, with the underappreciated short story "Press Enter []" (1984).
(thanks, librarybob)
Comments