Wednesday, August 2, 2017

Destigmatizing Suicide

Sophie Gilbert examines the power of the media in an Atlantic article about the Netflix show 13 Reasons Why. The show depicted a teenage girl’s suicide… and made it look reasonable and even glamorous. Many experts on the subject were concerned that the show would produce more suicide attempts.  The show’s producers replied that they were raising awareness of a problem and encouraging a national conversation. This last rationalization is the first refuge of psycho scoundrels.

Anyway, Gilbert shows that, what with Google searches, we can quantify the increased interest in suicide:

Within days of the release of 13 Reasons Why, Netflix’s teen-oriented drama about a high-school student who takes her own life, the show was being loudly criticized by suicide-prevention experts, who were concerned it could lead to a suicide-contagion effect and a spate of copycat attempts. Now, research published at the end of July argues that those concerns may have been founded. Google queries about suicide rose by almost 20 percent in 19 days after the show came out, representing between 900,000 and 1.5 million more searches than usual regarding the subject.

Search results do not necessarily mean more suicides, but researchers believe that there is a connection. In different terms, do you want to take the risk that your show will offer children a road map to suicide? Or worse, that it will encourage them to take that path.

The study’s authors write that it’s unclear whether an increase in searches regarding suicide meant an increase in actual suicide attempts, although they note that there’s typically a correlation between the two, and that “searches for precise suicide methods increased after the series’ release.” Their analyses, the authors concluded, “suggest 13 Reasons Why, in its present form, has both increased suicide awareness while unintentionally increasing suicidal ideation.”

But, is the contagion effect real? One suspects that it is. Ethan Watters’s book Crazy Like Us showed in detail how media-stoked awareness of certain psychological problems increased their incidence.

Gilbert continued:

In May, I examined how 13 Reasons Why managed to break virtually every rule that exists when it comes to portraying suicide as a subject for teen audiences, featuring a graphic, prolonged scene of the main character’s death in the final episode, and glamorizing her death as a force for positive change in her community. One of the biggest concerns among psychologists and educators was that the show might spark a contagion effect, where increased coverage of suicide in the media leads to a related increase in suicide attempts.

Gilbert is correct to emphasize a point that Watters made:

What the study does show is that art and entertainment have real power, and that as patterns of media consumption change, directors and producers don’t have the luxury of imagining their work in a vacuum. 

The show’s producers have suggested that the show will raise awareness and banish stigmas. Gilbert explained:

Netflix and the producers of 13 Reasons Why, who reportedly disregarded advice from mental-health experts not to release the first season, have repeatedly claimed that the show is raising awareness around the subject of suicide, banishing stigmas and leading to more discussion of a sensitive topic. But as this study implies, focusing public attention on suicide without taking recommended efforts to minimize harm can be counterproductive, and even dangerous. Dr. Dan Reidenberg, the executive director of Suicide Awareness Voices of Education, told me in May that he disagreed with the argument that simply broaching the topic in popular culture is enough. “It has definitely started a conversation about suicide,” he said, “but it hasn’t been the right one.”

You might ask whether we should really want to destigmatize suicide. When you destigmatize something you normalize it. Do we want to make suicide normal or reasonable under certain circumstances?

By the way, what if you took this argument and changed one element. Instead of suicide, what if we were talking about the national media presentation of transgenderism. Does the media mania encourage more children to convince themselves that they are transgender? Does it encourage more physicians to mutilate the bodies of these children with puberty-blocking hormones and gender reassignment surgery? 

After all, transgenderism is a belief... not a fact. Can't the media work to manipulate children's minds to make them believe many things that are untrue.

9 comments:

Ares Olympus said...

Stuart: You might ask whether we should really want to destigmatize suicide. When you destigmatize something you normalize it. Do we want to make suicide normal or reasonable under certain circumstances?

I don't think it says "destigmatize suicide". It says destigmatizing discussion. I wonder if movies like "The Big Chill" encouraged more suicides?

I don't know anything about the show, but I imagine what people are researching are things like the "most painless, dependable and fast way to end your life". I might guess carbon monoxide poisoning, like running a car in a closed garage, would be most dependable, and the least violent, since you can still back out at any point before that last moment you fall asleep. So you still need courage to follow through, and sometimes "tough love" from a girlfriend is the final step needed.

You'd think state executions would be done better. Lethal injection clearly can't be the most humane way, or maybe it fails the "keep it simple" ideal so it's too easy to botch.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2014/05/02/what-it-was-like-watching-the-botched-oklahoma-execution

Sam L. said...

Netflix may claim to be destigmatizing discussing suicide, but a reasonable person could conclude it is also destigmatizing suicide itself.

Anonymous said...

By all means let's take the stigma out of suicide, so that the people who take their own lives don't feel bad about it afterwards .. cause it's those bad feelings that lead to self destructive behavior .. or something

Yet another laughable non-sequitor that masquerades as wisdom on the left

James said...

Years ago I had a boss who if you got sick and lost time, a week later he got sick oddly enough with the same malady. So a co worker and I got a PDR and started looking up exotic ailments. Sure enough he always got the same thing. We had the most fun with nematodes (flat worms, parasites etc).

Ignatius Acton Chesterton OCD said...

The Left hates humanity. Always has, always will.

I have deep compassion for loved ones who are the first to discover a suicide, as well as the people who have to clean up after suicides. Those suicides involving cutting or firearms must be the most gruesome. I imagine the sensory assault on these survivors must be overwhelming.

Suicide is not just another "victimless crime," as the. Ihiliata would claim. Very sad.

Sam L. said...

Had a customer tell me once he'd gotten home to find his wife had killed herself with a shotgun. Gambling losses. IAC has it right.

Kentucky Headhunter said...

The show’s producers replied that they were raising awareness of a problem and encouraging a national conversation. This last rationalization is the first refuge of psycho scoundrels.

Couldn't agree more. I'd like to have a conversation with them about how they should be tarred, feathered and deported to the Antarctic. Ha-ha, I've already made up my mind about that.

Ignatius Acton Chesterton OCD said...

"The show’s producers replied that they were raising awareness of a problem and encouraging a national conversation. This last rationalization is the first refuge of psycho scoundrels."

It's also rank virtue-signaling... more self-congratulation from the morally magnificent. I'm growing tired of people who are out to "raise awareness." More often than not, it's more PR and than it is about education. I actually find the NFL's breast cancer awareness pink-out campaign to be the most vulgar sort of pandering imaginable... another great Roger Goodell invention.

Also, from my comment above, I don't know what my thumb typing created, but it's certainly not decipherable. What I was trying to write was: "Suicide is not just another 'victimless crime,' as the nihilists would claim. Very sad."

James said...

IAC,
"morally magnificent", I love that. I bet they drive a Pius also.