Self-Injury Videos On YouTube Are Alarming Trend

CHICAGO — YouTube videos on cutting and other self-injury methods are an alarming new trend, attract millions of hits and could serve as a how-to for troubled viewers, a study warns.

Many videos show bloody live enactments or graphic photos of people cutting their arms or legs with razors or other sharp objects, the study found. Many also glamorize self-injury and few videos discourage it, the study authors said.

They also feature haunting music and rich imagery that may attract young self-injurers and trigger the behavior, especially in those who have just started to self-injure, the authors suggest.

Canadian psychologist Stephen Lewis, a study co-author, said he found more than 5,000 YouTube videos on self-injury. The study focused on 100 videos the authors found in December 2009. Their analysis was published online Monday in Pediatrics.

The 100 videos were viewed more than 2 million times and generated many online comments.

Parents and mental health professionals should be aware of the YouTube postings and that the videos might be perpetuating the problem, said Lewis, an assistant professor at the University of Guelph in Ontario.

The study's authors also recommended that YouTube provide helpful resources or links when people enter search terms for "self-injury." A company spokeswoman said YouTube is looking into the feasibility of the suggestion.

She said the site has policies against graphic content and content that encourages dangerous activities. It relies on viewers to flag questionable videos, and a YouTube team reviews and removes those in violation of those policies. Self-injury videos are among those that have been removed.

Self-injury is most common among young people. Between 14 percent and 24 percent of teens and young adults have engaged in self-injury at least once, Lewis said. Cutting is among the most common methods.

Psychologist Tracy Knight, an associate professor at Western Illinois University in Macomb, Ill., is interviewed in a documentary-style YouTube video about cutting that has been viewed more than 14,000 times and generated more than 80 comments.

Knight said the video was done by a student and he didn't know it was on YouTube. The video's opening scenes include a young woman poking a sharp tool into her leg.

Knight said such videos may inadvertently trigger self-harm, but that YouTube also can serve a benefit by taking self-injury out of the closet and into the public realm.

"It makes it open for social discussion . . . in a way that was not possible when it was secret," he said.

Lewis said therapists who treat self-injurers should consider asking their patients if they watch these videos and counsel them about possible effects. Parents, too, should be aware that kids may be watching the videos and discuss the issue with them, he said.

Self-injurers typically are struggling with feelings of anger, sadness, depression or other emotional troubles, and usually don't cut deep enough to cause major harm, said Barent Walsh, a therapist and author of a book on self-injury treatment.

Self-injuring "is oddly effective in reducing emotional distress" in people who have poor coping skills, Walsh said.

He said it's well-known that photos and websites about self-injury can trigger the behavior in people who already self-injure or who are tempted to do it. But he said the study results are important and raise concerns that YouTube "may well be the most powerful influence of them all because of its nature."

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Online:

Pediatrics: http://www.pediatrics.org

Comments

[SamMicCham]

01:24 PM on 02/22/2011

It's Down the Stream, not Across the River, kids!!

JK guys, self-harm isn't cool. What do you put in the search bar? "How to cut self"? "When I think about you, I cut myself, ohhhh...."

[Gail Cerridwen]

03:33 AM on 02/22/2011

(continued)

Human consciousness is a vast mystery and I don't think any of us know all that much about it. Psychology is a SOFT science and has frequently changed its mind as cultures change and as we learn, things we tend to forget.

Yes, some kids self-injury briefly out of curiosity or for attention. But the ones who really self-injure (and continue to do so) are human beings in a hell of a lot of pain and deserve any help and support we can give them. And the Youtube vids? They're not going to teach kids anything they don't already know. Plus, what we try to hide only becomes more appealing, and self-injury is so much less harmful than SO MANY THINGS!!! Like, for instance, becoming an addict. Engaging in SERIOUSLY destructive and suicidal behaviors. Committing suicide.

We might even consider--as a national community--committing to decently funding agencies like Child Protection Services, social workers and psychologists in schools . . . Yeah, all of those. If we simply get shocked by human behaviors like SI, judging from on high (Why does Nancy Grace's voice come to mind?), unwilling to understand or do anything constructive, we're nothing but hypocrites. (Yes, I've been myself but these kids, as I said, break my heart and glue to my mind.)

[Gail Cerridwen]

03:18 AM on 02/22/2011

(continued)
I used to work with a lot of traumatized kids and have seen so much human damage that it breaks my heart, sickens me. Did you know that nearly ONE IN FOUR girls and ONE ON SIX boys is sexually molested by the age of eighteen? I have no doubt that many of the abused kids I worked with would self-report that they weren't abused. But there are universal signs you can learn to read.

One psychologist told me that the biggest "open secret" in contemporary psychology today is that eating disorders are almost always connected to sexual abuse. I’ve been told numerous times by those in the field that all psychologists know these things but can’t share them with larger communities or media cuz they would most definitely get flak. This is a power struggle going back over a hundred years, beginning with Pierre Janet and Freud. Freud re-invented his theories and career after peers were appalled by his report that all these “hysterical” girls and young women—from very prosperous and “upstanding” families, like their very own!—had been sexually abused. Freud went back to his drawing board and when he came out again he blamed the “hysterical” victims with his famous “Oedipus” and “Electra” complexes. His star began to rise swiftly as a result. (Perhaps we’re seeing Freud’s hysterical females now reincarnated with the popularity of the shaming “BPD” diagnosis, which is—again—known to psychologists to primarily involve sexually abused females.)

to be continued

[Gail Cerridwen]

03:15 AM on 02/22/2011

(continued) My memories slowly began popping up (and no, I wasn’t even in therapy anymore). Then I began finding other things. Such as? A book manuscript my dead father had written (and my mother had typed for him cluelessly, think that’s called willful ignorance) with a character obviously based on himself (Lutheran minister) and his "fiancee," whom he raped, and who just happened to have MY NAME, even spelled the same. And yeah, there’s even more. . . .

But truth is being traumatized simply has certain universal HUMAN reactions, such as a rise in all the adrenal chemicals inside us, like epinephrine, norepinephrine, cortisol. Under CHRONIC, ongoing trauma, these speeding chemicals inside us don’t shut off, not even when we’re out of those dangerous situations. THEN as a result, over time our cell receptors become overly sensitized to these chemicals and we don’t produce as much of them (scientifically validated). This systemic physiological change is also (commonsensically?) related to anxiety and panic attacks. So many popular media topics like these are connected and HAVE ORIGINS THAT ARE NOT ONLY BIOLOGICAL! (I suspect the drug companies are putting their weights on our cultural scale of the old “nature or nurture” question, guess which side.) We can't simply lump all trauma into one category either, cuz of course we're talking CONTINUUMS, aren't we?

to be continued

[Gail Cerridwen]

03:14 AM on 02/22/2011

In scanning these newer posts, it strikes me we don't have much general education in this area. There has been A LOT of research and discovery in trauma over the past ten years. Such as? Beginning with MRI studies on soldiers with PTSD (then replicated in other studies), they discovered PHYSICAL evidence of trauma: atrophy in the hippocampus and amygdala, both relating to MEMORY.

Look, I've got my name and photo on here; it's not easy to say such things, but I've experienced forgetting my own childhood traumas (called "dissociated amnesia" currently). Hard for me to even admit cuz of our twisted culture that recently seriously, "scientifically," speculated regarding this anonomly: "but which came first, the chicken or the egg.” Yeah, in other words, do people with smaller hippocampi run out and SEEK to be traumatized? Just more evidence that we REALLY want to culturally keep that illusion that "we" aren't susceptible to being traumatized ourselves, only “inferior” people are?

For those skeptical, I went to a therapist in my thirties, took the MMPI, a personality "inventory" test, and was told (because of test only) that I had PTSD. I was puzzled and told the therapist truthfully that no, my father didn't hit me, only my mother. But then a couple years later, my mother and sister started talking about "that time he hit you so hard at supper you flew off the kitchen chair." THEY both recalled that, but I didn't, something I couldn’t just shrug off.

[Infostream]

03:53 PM on 02/21/2011

It would be interesting to see a study about whether poor kids living in places where it is a daily struggle to survive engage in this behavior, or if it's just those spoiled rotten, self-absorbed and ungrateful in cultures like ours.

[RedRat]

07:39 PM on 02/21/2011

Well since it is on YouTube, which would require a video camera and computer, I can't really imagine all that many downtrodden poor people being able to do this, or they just do it in private without the publicity. I have no answer for this behavior, it is a complete mystery to me.

[Alien Nation]

02:09 PM on 02/22/2011

People have used physical pain to deal with mental pain since the beginning of humans.

[TheSardonicAtheist]

03:28 PM on 02/21/2011

Obviously their are varies reason at to why people would do that, not because they saw a Youtube video of someone cutting themselves. If they're making incisions into themselves, clearly there is problem!

[wsdave]

01:05 PM on 02/21/2011

Kids have been cutting themselves for a VERY long time, far longer than YouTube has been around. If these videos show them how to do it more safely (avoiding infection and arteries, for example), then I'm all for it.

[Witkacy]

12:23 PM on 02/21/2011

>[YouTube] relies on viewers to flag questionable videos, and a YouTube team reviews and removes those in violation of those policies.

So they claim, but I don't believe it. We know that YouTube has, for instance, removed content preemptively when Viacom threatened legal action; but even though they claim to moderate their content, they still feature thousands of vids of kids self-injuring? How'd they miss those, while so diligently removing TV series episodes and even clips?

[RedRat]

07:43 PM on 02/21/2011

The real question is where do you draw the line. One very popular category on YouTube and on a lot of shows, particularly G4, are so-called "nut shots" where someone willingly exposes his genitals to being hit, usually men. The difference?? I don't know.

[AndyWright68]

11:36 AM on 02/21/2011

If kids harm themselves it is not because they saw a video. Get them help.

[Barringtonmorr]

11:31 AM on 02/21/2011

You tube tells some disturbing observances about America's youth. Not just this but read the comments of many of the videos. Anonymity really is the best tool for getting into the essence of a generation's psyche.

[hypnotoad72]

12:10 PM on 02/21/2011

Agreed.

[Arsalannn]

10:40 AM on 02/21/2011

I'm a university student, but I had so many encounters with self-mutilation in high school..

It's alarming how incredibly glorified the practice has become, even to the point that it has been considered a trendy thing to do among some teenage groups. I could easily distinguish between those who "faked" cut marks in desperate need of attention and those with actual problems. Organizations such as To Write Love on Her Arms aim to help the situation, but they end up doing more harm than good, as their T-shirts to "spread awareness" have merely turned out to be markers for attention-seekers. More resources need to be need to be invested in organizations that can offer concrete help to those who actually need it, as I think it's one of the greatest health problems facing adolescents these days.

[RedRat]

07:46 PM on 02/21/2011

Well as long as they survive and it is only superficial, what is the difference between that and getting a tat? I think this is something that might be just being blown out of proportion. In the end, it is a Darwin Garden out there.

[Untitled]

10:39 AM on 02/21/2011

Did we really need a study for this?

[DomingoHern]

10:32 AM on 02/21/2011

love how they choose to use Jan Brewer's debate video for this

[degenerate1991]

10:25 AM on 02/21/2011

Oddly enough (or not), I've never found myself compelled to seek pain while depressed, too busy wanting to crawl into a hole and never wake up again for that, not going to do anything. Instead, it is this other sort of mood, that I'd describe as a constant agitation, brain stuck in high gear, can't sleep, nervous, jittery, that makes pain attractive­. In that moment, I feel as if I can force myself back into peace if only I feel something stronger, at least, I feel compelled to try.