Internet search engines as both an aid and a danger for people at risk of suicide

Health Canal

When people who are contemplating suicide turn to the Internet, what are they most likely to find? A team of researchers has examined the results that come up for various suicide-related search terms using two browsers (Google and Bing/Yahoo) in two countries (the United States and Austria), and has found cause for both optimism and concern. They report that sites offering hope and resources to protect a vulnerable person against suicide are far more prevalent than those that seek to enable or encourage suicide attempts. However, the potentially harmful sites are often listed before the positive ones, especially when search terms are used that focus on suicide methods. The authors suggest that suicide prevention groups work on improving their Internet rankings, add method-related terms to their own sites as meta tags, and take other steps to make it likelier that vulnerable people who turn to the Internet will find the help they need.