The #BlueWhaleChallenge and presence of suicidal ideations on Polish-language Twitter (Preprint)

BACKGROUND The Blue Whale Challenge (BWCh) was a widely reported media hoax in 2017, presented as a online game that encouraged teenagers to commit suicide. The actual link between this internet phenomenon and the suicide remains doubtful. OBJECTIVE The aim of the study was to analyze the scale of BWCh interest and the suicidal content in polish Twitter and suicidal statistics. METHODS The Google Trends tool was used to estimate the timeframe of Internet users' interest. Media reports on BWCh were analyzed using Google News. Analysis of Twitter content containing the word "suicide" was carried out. Each tweet was reviewed to identify suicidally significant content. Data on suicides and suicide attempts were obtained from The National Police Headquarters. RESULTS Internet interest in BWCh was limited to March 2017. 240 clinically-significant tweets were identified, 65.7% of which contained thoughts of suicide, 11.7% as plans to commit suicide and 1.3% as encourage to suicide. There was a slight increase in suicidal behavior during April-May of 2017 in the 19-24 age group, compared to 2018-2019. However, the overall annual statistics for 2017 did not differ from the long-term trends. CONCLUSIONS There is no clear link between the popularity of BWCh and the increased suicidal behavior on national level. At the same time, there was alarming suicidal content at Twitter. Therefore, it would be advisable to address the help and preventive measures for users of social media.