Letter to the editor
High Viewership of Videos About Teenage Suicide on YouTube

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Method

A comprehensive search was conducted on two different computers separately using all the relevant and possible permutations and combinations of the keywords “suicide,” “suicidal,” “adolescents,” “adolescence,” “teens,” “teenage,” “teenager,” and “teenagers” on YouTube between December 18, 2018 and December 21, 2018. The results were verified to be similar from the two sources before proceeding to further analyses. The inclusion criteria were that the videos were in English and with ≥1,000

Results

The final analysis included 413 videos (Figure S1, available online) with a combined view count of 482,736,217 (median 9,860 [3,007–35,209]), including 24 (5.8%) videos with >1 million views each, were included in the final analysis. One video with 313,436,899 views accounted for 64.9% of total views; it was a popular song titled “1-800-273-8255” (suicide prevention hotline phone number). The median duration of the included videos was 3.7 (2.2–6.6) minutes, and they had been online for a median

Discussion

This study was motivated by a concern about what youths would be exposed to around the topic of suicide on YouTube. However, many of the salient findings of our study are quite encouraging. The most encouraging finding is that close to 80% of the videos on teenage suicide present educational content or promote awareness of the issue. The most widely watched video is a music video for the song “1-800-273-8255” by the rapper Logic, with Alessia Cara and Khalid: the song title is the number of a

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    Further, the portrayal of non-suicidal self injury on Youtube was found to frequently include explicit imagery of self-injury, and trigger warnings were infrequent, which may contribute to a normalization and reinforcment of such behavior (Lewis, Heath, Denis, & Noble, 2011). Furthermore, videos about teenage suicide were found to receive high viewership numbers, and online comments on these videos often conveyed a positive message (Dagar & Falcone, 2020). This finding indicates a strong interest of young people in these videos, highlighting the relevance of better insight into quality of suicide-related videos on the platform.

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The authors have reported no funding for this work.

Dr. Dagar served as the statistical expert for this research.

Disclosure: Dr. Falcone has received federal funds from the Health Resources and Services Administration Maternal and Child Health Bureau Project IMPACTT (Grant H98MC20269), the National Institute of Mental Health (Grant 5R21MH108857-02; Peripheral Neuroinflammatory Predictors of Suicidal Risk at Time of Inpatient Discharge in Adolescents), and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration Project PASS (a randomized controlled trial in children after discharge following suicide attempt comparing 3 therapeutic interventions). All three of these grants might have a component of suicide prevention. Dr. Dagar has reported no biomedical financial interests or potential conflicts of interest.

All statements expressed in this column are those of the authors and do not reflect the opinions of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. See the Instructions for Authors for information about the preparation and submission of Letters to the Editor.

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