I only did a very short Google Scholar search and just glanced at the abstract of something on JSTOR, and it seems that this effect is not an urban legend. However, I doubt that such results cross over to this type of discussion, context, style, etc.
In this paper we demonstrate that U.S. daily suicides increase significantly after highly publicized suicide stories appear on television evening news programs.
…
the effect probably does not extend beyond ten days.
This here is not an emotionally hyper-laden evening news program. This group of readers is very self-selected. The level of discussion around this topic is far better and, at the very least on the surface, emotionally disconnected than nearly all discussions IRL. (edit: Not that these are implicated as the causes in the abstract, but I think it illustrates where the idea comes from).
And then there is some wrong-headed fatalism: if even this type of discussion screws us, we should give up already. It will be impossible to improve matters if mentioning problems always makes them worse.
I only did a very short Google Scholar search and just glanced at the abstract of something on JSTOR, and it seems that this effect is not an urban legend. However, I doubt that such results cross over to this type of discussion, context, style, etc.
Why?
From the abstract:
This here is not an emotionally hyper-laden evening news program. This group of readers is very self-selected. The level of discussion around this topic is far better and, at the very least on the surface, emotionally disconnected than nearly all discussions IRL. (edit: Not that these are implicated as the causes in the abstract, but I think it illustrates where the idea comes from).
And then there is some wrong-headed fatalism: if even this type of discussion screws us, we should give up already. It will be impossible to improve matters if mentioning problems always makes them worse.