1. BACKGROUND & SIGNIFICANCE
Analysis of Traffic and Interactions of NSSI-Related Posts on Tumblr
Rebecca K. Eliseo-Arras, PhD1, MSW, Rachel Brous, BA1, & Sandra Sheppard, PhD, LMSW2
1University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY; 2PROMESA, Inc. Alba de Vida Methadone Clinic, Buffalo, NY
BACKGROUND & SIGNIFICANCE
RESULTS
Table 2. Traffic to mental health and NSSI-related organizations.
Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) is a maladaptive coping mechanism in which individuals cause intentional damage to bodily tissue without suicidal intent (International Society for the Study of Self-Injury (ISSS) Nock, 2010).
Motivations include emotional regulation, punishing oneself, or “calls” for help (Klonsky, 2009; Klonsky, 2007).
It is a behavior that often impacts adolescents and young adults (Klonsky, 2009) who use social media as a source of social support.
Previous research has established that NSSI images, posts, and memes exist on multiple social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and various message boards (Lewis & Arbuthnott, 2014; Moreno, Ton, Selkie, & Evans, 2016), but has yet to examine Tumblr, a social media platform that is more frequently used by young adults and adolescents.
A total of 720 individual posts resulting from five NSSI-related search terms were analyzed
8 overall themes emerged from the data: “depression & suicide” (43%), “triggering” (13%), “self-hate” (12%), “cries for help” (11%), “mental health organization” (6%), “NSSI-related organization” (7%), “forms of self-destruction” (3%), & “talk of addiction” (3%).
See Table 1 for totals of overall themes/search term.
Posts that garnered the most traffic (as measured by the number of notes/post) were from NSSI-related organizations & mental health organizations, with those themes each receiving more traffic individually than all the remaining themes received collectively; however, these two categories rarely elicited comments from other Tumblr users.
Traffic related to these posts are included in Table 2.
Depression & suicide theme contained some of the most expressive posts & often had more comments attached to individual posts.
Self-destructive theme had the most self-loathing posts & comments.
Some notes contained comments that were encouraging or supportive; others agreed with or reinforced what the original poster stated.
CONCLUSIONS
From a prevention standpoint, possessing the knowledge that individuals seek out this form of support allows practitioners, mental health experts, & primary care providers to incorporate inquiry about how those at risk for NSSI or suicidal behavior utilize these forms of social media; & if this source of support helps or hinders their behaviors.
It is promising that the traffic to NSSI-related & mental health organizations is high; whether individuals are consuming this information beyond a simple momentary tap of the ‘like’ icon remains to be seen, especially since the comments to notes ratio is rather low.
Understanding why individuals turn to these mediums for social support and emotional release is salient toward understanding the behavior overall while researching and developing more adaptive methods of coping.
Knowing how these forms of online social support are employed by those who engage in maladaptive coping can aid in prevention and treatment efforts.
AIMS
Table 1. Overall themes in each search term.
To examine the amount of traffic on Tumblr within themes related to NSSI
To determine which themes received the most traffic, as measured by number of “notes” per post (notes includes likes, reblogs, & comments)
To examine any posted quotes or comments related to the overall themes.
METHODS
Using a list of possible search terms, we combed through various posts on Tumblr that made mention of ‘self-injury’, ‘self-harm’, ‘self-hate’, ‘self-destruction’, & ‘self-injurious behavior’ using terms both with & without hashtags.
A content analysis was performed on each of these search terms by each of the three authors.
Initially, searches were generating hundreds of posts, some related to NSSI & others not.
In addition, the presence of duplicate posts made the process of data collection cumbersome.
It was then decided to focus on the first 50 posts of each search since these are often the posts that receive the most traffic & comments.
At the beginning of nearly every generated search, a warning message was the first post to display that pointed to counseling & self-harm prevention resources.