THE IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS ON SELF-INJURIOUS BEHAVIOR IN ADOLESCENTS

The paper provides a review of studies on non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) in online social networking. Content characteristics of online self-injury narrative are examined by focusing on such categories as hashtags, images, and comments. Negative and positive aspects of social networks' impact on the risk of self-injury in adolescent are summarized. The presence of NSSI content online and the ability to communicate on issues relating to self-injury can either improve psychological well-being of the users by increasing their mood and self-acceptance, giving means to receive support from others and get information on mental health resources, or increase the person's susceptibility to self-injuries by initiating their interest in this subject and reinforcing, and encouraging repeated self-harm. Therefore, mental health professionals are facing a global challenge: to create supportive and helpful online content, which implies the development of a new methodology, including language and terminology, that could integrate existing online discourse on self-injury and transform it from within.