Journal of Medical Internet Research - International Scientific Journal for Medical Research, Information and Communication on the Internet

Background: A limited number of studies have examined the differences in suicide-related social media use behaviors between suicide ideators and suicide attempters or have sought to elucidate how these social media usage behaviors contributed to the transition from suicidal ideation to suicide attempt. Objective: Suicide attempts can be acquired through suicide-related social media use behaviors. This study aimed to propose 3 suicide-related social media use behaviors (ie, attending to suicide information, commenting on or reposting suicide information, or talking about suicide) based on social cognitive theory, which proposes that successive processes governing behavior transition include attentional, retention, production, and motivational processes. Methods: We aimed to examine the mediating role of suicide-related social media use behaviors in Chinese social media users with suicidal risks. A sample of 569 Chinese social media users with suicidal ideation completed measures on suicidal ideation, suicide attempt, and suicide-related social media use behaviors. Results: The results demonstrated that suicide attempters showed a significantly higher level of suicidal ideation (t563.64=5.04; P<.001; two-tailed) and more suicide-related social media use behaviors, which included attending to suicide information (t567=1.94; P=.05; two-tailed), commenting on or reposting suicide information (t567=2.12; P=.03; two-tailed), or talking about suicide (t542.22=5.12; P<.001; two-tailed). Suicidal ideation also affected suicide attempts through the mediational chains. Conclusions: Our findings thus support the social cognitive theory, and there are implications for population-based suicide prevention that can be achieved by identifying behavioral signals.

Journal of Medical Internet Research - International Scientific Journal for Medical Research, Information and Communication on the Internet

Sleep quality is an important health indicator, and the current measurements of sleep rely on questionnaires, polysomnography, etc., which are intrusive, expensive or time consuming. Therefore, a more nonintrusive, inexpensive and convenient method needs to be developed. Use of the Kinect sensor to capture one’s gait pattern can reveal whether his/her sleep quality meets the requirements. Fifty-nine healthy students without disabilities were recruited as participants. The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) and Kinect sensors were used to acquire the sleep quality scores and gait data. After data preprocessing, gait features were extracted for training machine learning models that predicted sleep quality scores based on the data. The t-test indicated that the following joints had stronger weightings in the prediction: the Head, Spine Shoulder, Wrist Left, Hand Right, Thumb Left, Thumb Right, Hand Tip Left, Hip Left, and Foot Left. For sleep quality prediction, the best result was achieved by Gaussian processes, with a correlation of 0.78 (p < 0.001). For the subscales, the best result was 0.51 for daytime dysfunction (p < 0.001) by linear regression. Gait can reveal sleep quality quite well. This method is a good supplement to the existing methods in identifying sleep quality more ecologically and less intrusively.

Background: The phenomenon of cyberbullying is becoming increasingly severe, and many studies focus on the negative psychological impacts of cyberbullying survivors. However, current survey methods cannot provide direct and reliable evidence of the short-term psychological effects of cyberbullying survivors, as it is impractical to measure psychological changes before and after such an unpredictable event in a short period. Objective: This study aims to explore the psychological impacts of cyberbullying on survivors during the pericyberbullying period, defined as the critical time frame surrounding the first cyberbullying incident, encompassing the psychological changes before, during, and after the event. Methods: We collected samples from 60 cyberbullying survivors (experimental group, 94/120, 78% female) and 60 individuals who have not experienced cyberbullying (control group, matched by sex, location, and number of followers) on Sina Weibo, a social media platform developed by Sina Corporation. During the pericyberbullying period, we retrospectively measured psychological traits 3 months before and after the first cyberbullying incident for both groups. Social media data and predictive models were used to identify survivors’ internal psychological traits, including happiness, suicide risk, personality traits, and moral perceptions of the external environment. Network analysis was then performed to explore the interplay between cyberbullying experiences and psychological characteristics. Results: During the pericyberbullying period, survivors exhibited significantly reduced happiness (t59=2.14; P=.04), marginally increased suicide risk, and significant changes in the Big 5 personality traits, including decreased conscientiousness (t59=2.27; P=.03), agreeableness (t59=2.79; P=.007), and extraversion (t59=2.26; P=.03), alongside increased neuroticism (t59=–3.42; P=.001). Regarding moral perceptions of the external environment, survivors showed significant increases in communicative moral motivation (t59=–2.62; P=.011) and FairnessVice (t59=–2.20; P=.03), with a marginal rise in PurityVice (t59=–1.88; P=.07). In contrast, the control group exhibited no significant changes during the same time frame. Additionally, network analysis revealed that beyond cyberbullying experiences, core psychological characteristics in the network were neuroticism, conscientiousness, and Oxford Happiness. Conclusions: By leveraging noninvasive retrospective social media data, this study provides novel insights into the short-term psychological impacts of cyberbullying during the pericyberbullying period. The findings highlight the need for timely interventions focusing on enhancing survivors’ happiness, reducing suicide risk, adjusting personality traits, and rebuilding moral cognition to mitigate the negative effects of cyberbullying.

Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) among adolescents severely jeopardizes their well-being and has emerged as a significant global public health challenge. However, research on the trends in NSSI among adolescents remains scarce. This study sought to uncover the evolving patterns in the severity of NSSI among adolescents and the factors that influence these patterns. The Deliberate Self-Harm Inventory was employed to measure the severity of NSSI among adolescents. Relevant studies were retrieved from both Chinese databases (CNKI, Wanfang, and VIP) and English databases (Web of Science, PubMed, Scopus, ProQuest, and Wiley). A total of 70 articles (71 studies; N = 96,382) were included in this review. The data spanned from 2007 to 2023. The analysis revealed the following: (1) Although the severity of NSSI showed a small to moderate upward trend from 2007 to 2023, this increase did not reach statistical significance. (2) No significant differences in trends were observed among Asia, Europe, and the America. (3) Adolescents with clinical samples exhibited a more pronounced upward trajectory in NSSI severity compared to those with non-clinical samples. (4) Social development indicators (GDP per capita, Human Development Index, and Internet penetration rate) and social well-being (happiness index) exhibited significant positive correlations with NSSI among adolescents. Conversely, lower social equity (higher Gini coefficient) was associated with reduced NSSI among adolescents. This study elucidated the changing trends in NSSI among adolescents and offered novel insights for the early prevention and individualized intervention of NSSI among adolescents.