@article{ref1,
title="Effects of exposure to self-harm on social media: Evidence from a two-wave panel study among young adults",
journal="New media and society",
year="2019",
author="Arendt, F. and Scherr, S. and Romer, D.",
volume="21",
number="11-12",
pages="2422-2442",
abstract="Suicide is a leading cause of death among youth, and media depictions of suicidal behavior can be a contributing risk factor. Of interest, Instagram recently received more scholarly attention due to its large number of publicly available, explicit, and graphic depictions of self-harm. Importantly, researchers have hypothesized that exposure to this content could be a risk for self-harm and suicide in vulnerable audiences. We tested this hypothesis using a two-wave US panel survey among young adults (N = 729). Analyses indicated that exposure to self-harm on Instagram was associated with suicidal ideation, self-harm, and emotional disturbance even controlling for exposure to other sources with similar content. As hypothesized, exposure to self-harm on Instagram at the first wave prospectively predicted self-harm and suicidality-related outcomes at the second wave 1 month later. These findings provide evidence that such exposure can lead to contagion in vulnerable users. Implications are discussed. © The Author(s) 2019.<p /><p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="1461-4448",
doi="10.1177/1461444819850106",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1461444819850106"
}