LETTERS: It has been established that a publicised suicide has the potential to influence another susceptible person to do the same.
This is called the Werther effect, named after the novel The Sorrows of Young Werther by German philosopher Goethe.
Soon after its publication in 1774, young men began to mimic the behaviour of the main character in the book, who committed suicide by shooting himself with a pistol.
The term was coined by David Philips in 1974 after he found that suicide cases rose after suicides were publicised.
There are hundreds of studies confirming the Werther effect. Some studies show that people with similar demographic data as the victim are also more likely to kill themselves in a similar way.
Furthermore, if the victim is a public figure or a celebrity, there will be more copycat cases.
With social media, the Werther effect is expected to have a much bigger impact.
One reason given by researchers is that the report of suicide cases normally will be met by sympathetic comments, something most victims of suicide rarely received in their lifetime. Seeing the victims of suicide getting it, they believe that their suicide will have a similar outcome.
Another reason offered by the researchers is that these susceptible people feel that if the person who first committed suicide cannot handle the stress, then they will not be able to handle it too.
Multiple health organisations across the globe, including the local Health ministry, have guidelines on how the media should approach suicide reporting, including avoiding the need to describe how the death took place.
However, many media outlets do not follow the rules, reporting every detail regarding the victim and the family.
AMIR JALAL AND CHIA CHU HANG
EMIR Research