Social media, self-harm, and suicide

Self-harm- and suicide-related (SHS) content on social media is not clearly defined, and therefore, audience effects remain scattered. This article makes three contributions: First, it offers a definition and taxonomy for SHS content on social media with potentially negative audience effects. SHS content on social media is either explicit, implicit or ambivalent in nature, which makes it hard to regulate, and challenging for media effects research. Second, different forms of social media use are discussed as antecedents to self-harm and suicide. And third, functional social media affordances that shape the exposure to problematic SHS content on social media are reviewed. The regulation of the shape-diverse, problematic SHS content on social media remains a pressing future challenge.