Original articleSecret Society 123: Understanding the Language of Self-Harm on Instagram
Section snippets
Methods
This study took place on the social media site Instagram (www.instagram.com). Using a commonly used NSSI hashtag of #selfharmmm as a search term, we identified a sample of content posted on Instagram between the dates of June 18, 2014 and June 30, 2014 for evaluation. From this sample, we identified and investigated a list of ambiguous hashtags that were potentially linked to NSSI. We investigated that these selected hashtags to determine meaning and consistency using a structured approach
Results
Of the 225 Instagram posts examined, 201 met inclusion criteria; saturation was determined to be reached with this sample based on repeated hashtags. There were 193 unique usernames represented in the sample of posts.
A total of 10 hashtags representing NSSI were identified (Table 1). Most NSSI hashtags were represented more than one time because of variations in spelling and spacing arrangements, examples included #selfinjury and #blithe/#ehtilb.
A single hashtag, #MySecretFamily represented a
Discussion
In this study of publicly available Instagram content linked to the hashtag “selfharmmm,” we identified ambiguous user-generated hashtags with meanings linked to NSSI and associated mental health concerns. We found frequent use of NSSI hashtags on Instagram, growth in their use over time, and limited evidence that the content advisory warning was useful in identifying NSSI terms consistently or inappropriate redirecting of content.
Our first finding was that ambiguous NSSI terms were used as
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to recognize the assistance of Kim Cowan with this article.
References (41)
- et al.
Non-suicidal self-injury among adolescents: Diagnostic correlates and relation to suicide attempts
Psychiatry Res
(2006) The developmental psychopathology of self-injurious behavior: Compensatory regulation in posttraumatic adaptation
Clin Psychol Rev
(2004)- et al.
Helpful or harmful? An examination of viewers' responses to nonsuicidal self-injury videos on YouTube
J Adolesc Health
(2012) - et al.
A content analysis of displayed alcohol references on a social networking web site
J Adolesc Health
(2010) - et al.
Twitter chatter about marijuana
J Adolesc Health
(2015) - et al.
Personal information of adolescents on the Internet: A quantitative content analysis of MySpace
J Adolesc
(2008) - et al.
Development of a researcher codebook for use in evaluating social networking site profiles
J Adolesc Health
(2011) - et al.
Understanding nonsuicidal self-injury: Origins, assessment and treatment
- et al.
The virtual cutting edge: The Internet and adolescent self-injury
Dev Psychol
(2006) - et al.
Rates of nonsuicidal self-injury in youth: Age, sex, and behavioral methods in a community sample
Pediatrics
(2012)
Prevalence of nonsuicidal self-injury in nonclinical samples: Systematic review, meta-analysis and meta-regression
Suicide Life Threat Behav
The cutting edge: Non-suicidal self-injury in adolescence
Developmental Psychology
Self-injury
Annu Rev Clin Psychol
The relation between childhood maltreatment and self-injury: A review of the literature on conceptualization and intervention
Trauma Violence Abuse
The scope of nonsuicidal self-injury on YouTube
Pediatrics
On the creative edge: Exploring motivations for creating non-suicidal self-injury content online
Qual Health Res
The Facebook influence model: A concept mapping approach
Cyberpsychol Behav Soc Netw
Instagram's pro anorexia controversy
Social media update 2013
Cited by (111)
The self appreciation project: An exploratory study of social media for youth mental health promotion
2022, Mental Health and PreventionExamining nonsuicidal self-injury content creation on TikTok through qualitative content analysis
2022, Library and Information Science ResearchCitation Excerpt :As such, the content creators included in the data set did not violate Community Guidelines, but rather adhered to rules outlined in the Community Guidelines, recognizing this as a means of maintaining visibility. This strategy suggests that NSSI communities are invested in creating and maintaining a shared but elusive body of knowledge while simultaneously avoiding recognition from individuals outside the community (Moreno et al., 2016), mimicking larger discursive practices of circumnavigating algorithms across emerging ICTs. Further, analyzing the sociotechnical context surrounding the data enabled the researcher to study social-specific information practices of individuals who engage in NSSI, including language and experiences specific to the community.
Social media, self-harm, and suicide
2022, Current Opinion in PsychologyThe body image “problem” on social media: Novel directions for the field
2022, Body ImageCitation Excerpt :Furthermore, Moreno, Ton, Selkie, and Evans (2016) found several deliberately ambiguous non-suicidal self-injury tags on Instagram, like #secretsociety123, unlikely to be detected by human moderators screening for eating-related terms. Such an outcome was predictable by anyone with a knowledge of social steganography, which involves ensuring the security or privacy of messages through obscuring them (Moreno et al., 2016). Furthermore, Gerrard (2018) showed that the majority of pro-ED content is not tagged with pro-ED hashtags.
Conflict of Interest: No authors have conflicts of interest to report.