The Impact of a Highly Publicized Celebrity Suicide on Suicide-Related Online Information Seeking.
BACKGROUND
Research has already acknowledged the importance of the Internet in suicide prevention as search engines such as Google are increasingly used in seeking both helpful and harmful suicide-related information.


OBJECTIVE
We aimed to assess the impact of a highly publicized suicide by a Hollywood actor on suicide-related online information seeking.


METHODS
We tested the impact of the highly publicized suicide of Robin Williams on volumes of suicide-related search queries.


RESULTS
Both harmful and helpful search terms increased immediately after the actor's suicide, with a substantial jump of harmful queries.


CONCLUSIONS
The study has limitations (e.g., possible validity threats of the query share measure, use of ambiguous search terms).


CONCLUSIONS
Online suicide prevention efforts should try to increase online users' awareness of and motivation to seek help, for which Google's own helpline box could play an even more crucial role in the future.
1 Department of Communication Science and Media Research, University of Munich (LMU), Germany.
Florian
F
Arendt
1 Department of Communication Science and Media Research, University of Munich (LMU), Germany.
Sebastian
S
Scherr
D016208:Databases, Factual; D005197:Famous Persons; D015277:Hotlines; D006801:Humans; D057226:Information Seeking Behavior; D020407:Internet; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D057386:Search Engine; D013405:Suicide
Google; Internet; Robin Williams; celebrity suicide; search engines