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How did the Suicide Act and Speak Differently Online? Behavioral and Linguistic Features of China's Suicide Microblog Users

Background: Suicide issue is of great concern in China. Social media provides an active approach to understanding suicide individuals in terms of their behavior and language use. Aims: This study investigates how suicide Microblog users in China act and speak differently on social media from others. Methods: Hypothesis testing in behavioral and linguistic features was performed between a target group of 33 Chinese Microblog users who have committed suicide and a control group of 30 active users without suicidal ideation. Results: Suicide group significantly outnumbered control group in the extent of openly published posts and self-reference, and the intensity of using 7 word categories: negative words/social process words/cognitive process words/emotion process words/negative emotion words/exclusive words/physiological process words. Limitations: Information collection and confirmation of suicide users remain difficult. Conclusions: It is revealed that suicide people vary from others in certain behavioral and linguistic features in social media. This study fills the niche of suicide studies by noting specified indicators of suicide ideation for Chinese individuals online, providing insights of constructing an online alarm system for early detection and intervention of suicidal individuals.