Suicide in Japan: Part Fifteen - An Introduction to Internet Suicide

J. Sean Curtin (GLOCOM Fellow)

A full list of articles in this series can be found here.

What is internet suicide?
Internet suicide is when two or more people form a mutual suicide pact using the internet as a means to find each other and plan their suicide. In most cases, the victims are in their twenties or thirties. Usually, they only meet their internet contacts for a short time prior to the group suicide attempt. Normally, the victims have no connection with each other except the desire to commit suicide with another person.

This type of suicide is rare, representing less than a tenth of one percent of all recorded suicides in 2003. However, the gruesome phenomenon has attracted wide spread media coverage due the relatively large number of strangers who commit suicide simultaneously. To date, the biggest group in one incident has numbered seven.

A range of internet media are used to locate and bring together suicidal strangers. These media include suicide-related websites, chat rooms and bulletin boards. Such forums are used not only to seek out others but also for discussing the exact means for carrying out the death wish. Once the method and details have been mutually agreed, the individuals meet up to put their plan into action.

Putting internet suicide in context
According to the National Police Agency (NPA) statistics for 2003, a total of 34 people killed themselves in 12 group internet suicide incidents. The overall suicide figure for the same year was 34,427 deaths, which means that internet suicide represented just 0.09 percent of the total. Clearly, this form of suicide is uncommon. However, its disturbing, impersonal nature and group aspect has given it an extremely high media profile.

According to provisional NPA figures for the first half of 2004 (January to June), there were a total of five internet suicide incidents in which 11 people died. However, the total figure for 2004 may exceed the 2003 level because there has been a shape increase in the number of incidents reported since June.

On one day in early October alone 9 people were found dead in two separate incidences. In one of the incidents, seven people killed themselves by inhaling carbon monoxide inside a vehicle, representing the largest number of deaths in a single case. In mid September four young people killed themselves in a similar fashion. Police now fear a spate of copy-cat incidences during the last few months of 2004.

When did the internet suicide phenomenon begin to emerge?
Internet suicide pacts were first recorded in Japan during the late nineties, but the phenomenon probably existed earlier. It is important to note that this is not a problem unique to Japan and that such suicides have also been reported in many other industrially advanced countries. The international nature of this problem may suggest that suicidal people are just utilizing the internet as a means to help end their lives rather than pointing to any deeper problems affecting Japanese society. The underlying causes of internet suicide are discussed in a later article in this series.

A full list of articles in this series can be found here.