ABSTRACT
This chapter serves as an exploration of the interplay of technology and suicide risk and prevention. The power of social media can be used by individual users to promote suicidal behavior and on a larger community level can create the potential for increasing the chances of individuals acting on suicidal thoughts and plans in response to reports of suicide. Organizers of social media platforms have made efforts to prevent the potential negative effects of social media without undercutting potential benefits of using social media to share resources and provide support. The enormity of data communicated via social media necessitates automated means of monitoring for suicide risk on a large scale. The social media website Reddit has a subreddit called “SuicideWatch” where people post about suicidal thoughts to receive feedback and support from the community of over 155,000 subscribers. Most social media platforms offer individual users the ability to flag posts for suicide-related content to create opportunities for outreach and support.
