Suicide and self-harm content on Instagram: A systematic scoping review

Area of Science:

• Digital mental health
• Social media studies
• Public health surveillance

Background:

• Growing concerns exist regarding the prevalence and impact of suicide and self-harm content on social media platforms like Instagram.
• Existing research on this topic is limited, necessitating a comprehensive overview of the available literature.

Purpose of the Study:

• To systematically scope peer-reviewed studies on self-harm and suicide content on Instagram published between 2010-2019.
• To analyze the nature of content, platform interventions, and user impacts related to self-harm on Instagram.

Main Methods:

• Systematic scoping review of English-language, peer-reviewed primary studies.
• Categorization of studies into 'content studies' and 'user studies' for analysis.
• Synthesis of findings despite heterogeneity in study methodologies and outcomes.

Main Results:

• Only ten studies were identified, with self-harm or suicide content found in 9-66% of analyzed Instagram posts.
• Instagram's interventions to address harmful content were found to be largely ineffective.
• One study suggested potential negative emotional effects and preliminary evidence of offline harm related to self-harm content, though causality is not established. Some benefits were also suggested.

Conclusions:

• The limited research highlights significant concerns about self-harm content on Instagram and the ineffectiveness of current mitigation strategies.
• Further research, including direct user interviews, is crucial to understand user perspectives and the complex relationship between online content and offline behaviors.
• Ethical considerations surrounding the study of self-harm content online require careful attention.