The Internet makes it easy to learn about anything, even suicide, and a new study out in the British Medical Journal tries to determine just how simple it is to dig up suicide information online. And when the information is found, the authors determine whether it promotes suicide or not, an important consideration since "media reporting of suicide and its fictional portrayal on television are known to influence suicidal behavior, particularly the choice of method used."

Although concern about suicide information on the Web has been growing, the UK researchers who did the study note that no one actually knows how easy it is to find this information online, nor do they know exactly what sort of information is found. To fill the knowledge gap, the researchers collected 12 broad search terms gathered in part from interviews with those how had attempted suicide: suicide, suicide methods, suicide sure methods, most effective methods of suicide, methods of suicide, ways to commit suicide, how to commit suicide, how to kill yourself, easy suicide methods, best suicide methods, pain-free suicide, and quick suicide.

The researchers then used these 12 terms on four of the top search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Ask) and looked at the first ten results for each search (based on more general research that shows Internet searchers often don't look beyond the first page of results).

The 480 results that this generated were consolidated to produce 240 unique web sites, which were then divided into 14 groups that ranged from "dedicated suicide site, pro-suicide" to "academic or policy site" to "news reports of individual suicides." With the coding done, the researchers found that 90 of the 240 sites they identified were totally dedicated to suicide, and fully half of these (45 sites) promoted or encouraged suicide. 62 of the 240 sites were for suicide prevention or support services, while another 59 were sites that forbid or discouraged the practice.

The results varied by search engine. Google produced the most dedicated suicide sites by a wide margin (nearly twice as many as MSN), while MSN topped the list when it came to prevention sites and academic sites.

But perhaps most disturbing was that the most frequent results were pro-suicide. "The three most frequently occurring sites were all pro-suicide," note the authors, who also found that "Wikipedia was the fourth most frequently occurring site." All four of these top sites provided information about methods, speed, and pain associated with suicide attempts.

The authors make little attempt to draw normative conclusions from the data, though they do note that suicide rates in England have dropped among 15- to 34-year-olds for more than a decade... just as the Internet blasted its way into the public consciousness. They also note that, while finding pro-suicide information is easier on the Internet than it used to be in the local library, finding suicide prevention and support information is also simpler. "Cases of Internet induced suicide may be offset by potential beneficial effects or other suicide prevention activities," they conclude.

The ease with which those who might be contemplating The Last Logoff can readily find sites that not only give info on how to commit suicide, but advocate it, is disturbing. In a sense, the results are also not all that surprising given how search engines index and rank sites. By way of illustration, a search for the psychoactive plant salvia divinorum turns up mostly links on where to buy it and how to use it on the first page of Google's results. You have to do a bit of digging to find anything cautionary on the plant and its use.

Note: In the course of researching this article, I stumbled across what may be the most disturbing document I have ever encountered on the Internet, and that's saying something. Let's just say that if you do want to kill yourself (and I certainly hope that you don't), the information is in fact out there. In great and excruciating detail. I had no previous knowledge of what the ingestion of lye could do to a human body. This was one of the most life-hating documents I've ever had the misfortune to read; be aware of what you're in for if you attempt to replicate the study results on your own. Now, go hug a child.