Milica Pejovic Milovancevic, Dusica Lecic Tosevski, Smiljka Popovic Deusic, Zagorka Bradic
Institute of Mental Health, Belgrade, Serbia
Internet and Suicide. Hauppauge, New York: Nova Science Publishers, 2009, 452 pages.

Children and adolescents are growing up in the world saturated with mass media. They spend an average of 3-5 hours per day with a variety of media, including television, radio, videos, videogames, and the internet. Media is offering to young people great opportunities for fun, learning and development. On the other hand, there must be concern of inappropriate information they are presenting to the youth, often lowering their threshold for and increasing the risk of suicidal behavior. Therefore the media should exercise restraint in describing concrete details especially when reporting on youth suicides. The association between media portrayal and suicidal behavior is probably the strongest in young people, with clear evidence that reporting on specific suicidal methods has significant impact to shape the behavior of vulnerable adolescent population. Wide acceptance of the internet, fortunately, makes it also a powerful tool for recognition of the at-risk individuals, for prevention of suicide and support to survivors.