迪伦·托马斯·道尔 was a college junior traveling abroad when he got word that his friend Jack had taken his own life back home. 动摇了, 但不愿意当面和朋友们谈论, he turned to online grief support spaces like Facebook and Reddit.

十年后, when serving as a hospital chaplain and Unitarian Universalist minister, 他又有两个亲人自杀身亡. He found solace online again—this time in a subreddit specifically created for suicide bereavement.

“All grief is hard, but suicide is often sudden, traumatic and has a lot of social stigma around it. 没人知道该说什么, 所以你会感到非常孤立,道尔说。, now a doctoral candidate in the Department of Information 科学 at CU Boulder. “It’s comforting to go to these spaces and have people 说, ‘I’ve been through that. 我知道你的感受.’”

但正如Doyle在两项新研究中所报道的那样, 这样的空间也有可能造成伤害, 暴露情感脆弱的人, 包括儿童, 到图形故事, unhelpful comments and other potentially re-traumatizing content.

的 研究, published in the Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, are among the first to explore what goes on in suicide bereavement groups. 

“It’s great that these communities exist,道尔说。, who is now working to make them safer. “但现在，它是一种免费的.” 

分享故事的力量

在美国，平均有132人会被解雇.S. 每天彻底自杀. More than half of the population will, at some point, grieve a loved one who has died this way. Professional help can be hard to find because suicide bereavement is specialized. One recent study found that 62% of people grieving a loved one who died by suicide turn to social media for support.

供他们研究, 道尔和他的合著者研究了近2个,600个职位和16个,reddit的r/SuicideBereavement版块有502条评论. 

的 team used AI natural language processing (NLP) technology to get insight into the emotional state of users and identify different kinds of posts, from lengthy stories to short questions or requests for resources. 

的y found that nearly half of content posted was narrative storytelling, 其中很多故事都非常生动.

When the team noticed a large subset of users were writing letters to the deceased, they launched 一项伴随研究 in which they read through 189 such posts and 652 comments.

的 posts were anonymized and the research team made sure to take care of their own mental health along the way.

“Even as researchers, we struggled to read some of these,道尔说。. 

Some letter-writers shared how they had found out and how it affected them. Others asked for explanations or sought forgiveness for not doing enough. One shared a story about a final trip they and the deceased had taken to the mountains, 以及他们后来笑得多么厉害. 许多评论者对此表示安慰, 保证, gratitude and offers of direct support outside the platform.

But some shared detailed descriptions of the way they had found their loved ones or the way their death had been carried out. 一些人表达了对落后的愤怒和仇恨.

的 team was heartened to find almost no deliberately abusive comments but they did find some they deemed “unsupportive,” in which commenters replied with their own graphic stories.

“Some people come there just seeking resources or asking factual questions, and don’t expect to find people sharing narratives of really tough images,道尔说.

因为社交媒体算法的运作方式, the most graphic comments tended to rise to the top and generated more comments.

“如果你, 说, 13-years-old and you come upon this and start taking it all in, 这可能真的很有害,他说. “And for people who are already in a vulnerable emotional state, 这可能会破坏他们的悲伤过程.”

建立一个更具支持性的平台

Doyle stressed that he is not specifically critiquing Reddit, but rather raising questions about how to more effectively support people using social media platforms for suicide bereavement support. He believes more research is needed and does not think banning narrative storytelling on platforms is the answer. (之前的研究表明，在线下支持团体中, 这种讲故事的方式非常有治疗效果.)

他确实认为平台可以更好地为用户服务.

目前, r/SuicideBereavement subreddit moderators are not required to be certified or trained in mental health. 

在其主页上, the site clearly prohibits “actively suicidal content” and advises that it is reserved only for those bereaved by suicide. But the subreddit, just like an NFL or travel subreddit, operates with few guardrails.

道尔想象有一天, 使用他的团队开发的人工智能工具, 叙述性帖子可以分类和用户, 登录时, 你可以选择看还是不看.

He also suggests that moderators get training around grief support and users have an opportunity to customize what they want to see at the top of their feed.

“Social media platforms in general don’t really know what to do with death or the bereaved,他说. “We believe that more needs to be done to make these spaces customized to the unique needs of the grieving.”