Self-harm and social media: thematic analysis of images posted on three social media sites.
Nicola ShanahanCathy A BrennanAllan O HousePublished in: BMJ open (2019)
Findings suggest that clinicians should not be overly anxious about what is being posted on social media. Although we found a very few posts suggesting self-injury was attractive, there were no posts that could be viewed as actively encouraging others to self-harm. Rather, the sites were being used to express difficult emotions in a variety of creative ways, offering inspiration to others through the form of texts or shared messages about recovery.