Investigating Google's suicide-prevention efforts in celebrity suicides using agent-based testing : A cross-national study in four European countries
Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved..
RATIONALE: Google can act as a "gatekeeper" for individuals who seek suicide-related information online (e.g., "how to kill oneself"). The search engine displays a "suicide-prevention result" (SPR) at the very top of some suicide-related search results. This SPR comes as an info box and contains supposedly helpful crisis help information such as references to a telephone counseling service.
OBJECTIVE: It remains unknown, however, how Google has implemented the SPR in the especially dangerous context of celebrity suicide for which imitational copycat suicides in vulnerable individuals are most likely.
METHOD: Relying on agent-based testing, a computational social science method, we emulated a total of 137,937 Google searches in April 2019, using both general suicide-related and specific celebrity suicide-related search terms. Given the recently discovered language-based differences in SPR display rates, we held the language constant and focused on German-speaking populations in four European countries.
RESULTS: The SPR was never shown in searches for celebrities who died by suicide in all four countries. Furthermore, analyses indicated a digital divide in access to suicide-prevention information with moderately high SPR display rates in Germany and Switzerland, yet with no display in Austria and Belgium.
CONCLUSION: Higher SPR display rates could support global suicide-prevention efforts at virtually no cost by providing preventive information to vulnerable users precisely at the moment when it is apparently needed.
Medienart: |
E-Artikel |
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Erscheinungsjahr: |
2020 |
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Erschienen: |
2020 |
Enthalten in: |
Zur Gesamtaufnahme - volume:262 |
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Enthalten in: |
Social science & medicine (1982) - 262(2020) vom: 01. Okt., Seite 112692 |
Sprache: |
Englisch |
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Beteiligte Personen: |
Arendt, Florian [VerfasserIn] |
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Links: |
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Themen: |
Digital divide |
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Anmerkungen: |
Date Completed 27.04.2021 Date Revised 07.12.2022 published: Print-Electronic Citation Status MEDLINE |
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doi: |
10.1016/j.socscimed.2019.112692 |
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funding: |
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Förderinstitution / Projekttitel: |
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PPN (Katalog-ID): |
NLM306517221 |
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520 | |a Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. | ||
520 | |a RATIONALE: Google can act as a "gatekeeper" for individuals who seek suicide-related information online (e.g., "how to kill oneself"). The search engine displays a "suicide-prevention result" (SPR) at the very top of some suicide-related search results. This SPR comes as an info box and contains supposedly helpful crisis help information such as references to a telephone counseling service | ||
520 | |a OBJECTIVE: It remains unknown, however, how Google has implemented the SPR in the especially dangerous context of celebrity suicide for which imitational copycat suicides in vulnerable individuals are most likely | ||
520 | |a METHOD: Relying on agent-based testing, a computational social science method, we emulated a total of 137,937 Google searches in April 2019, using both general suicide-related and specific celebrity suicide-related search terms. Given the recently discovered language-based differences in SPR display rates, we held the language constant and focused on German-speaking populations in four European countries | ||
520 | |a RESULTS: The SPR was never shown in searches for celebrities who died by suicide in all four countries. Furthermore, analyses indicated a digital divide in access to suicide-prevention information with moderately high SPR display rates in Germany and Switzerland, yet with no display in Austria and Belgium | ||
520 | |a CONCLUSION: Higher SPR display rates could support global suicide-prevention efforts at virtually no cost by providing preventive information to vulnerable users precisely at the moment when it is apparently needed | ||
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