Text messaging becoming a common form of suicide note

PEOPLE about to take their own lives are increasingly using text messages and voicemail instead of handwritten notes as a means of delivering the chilling messages, a coroner revealed at the weekend.

The coroner for south Mayo John O’Dwyer said the use of mobile phones was becoming a common way of notifying family or friends.

Mr O’Dwyer told a seminar on the Portrayal of Suicide in the Media that the question of why do people kill themselves is a matter for society to deal with.

“I believe that we may have become too affluent, too busy in ourselves, with less time for human contact resulting in vulnerable people becoming isolated,” he said.

Mr O’Dwyer said statistics did not support the common belief that it is mostly young people who are taking their lives. Of the 25 suicide cases he has dealt with as coroner for south Mayo over the past two years, only two cases out of 25 was a person below the age of 30.

Of the 25 suicides:

21 were male

four were female

the average age was 47

the youngest was 25

the oldest was 73

Mr O’Dwyer said the majority of men who killed themselves felt alone and isolated.

“Certainly there is a common feature of the single male, generally living alone, sad, with no one to talk to, feeling isolated from friends and relatives and feeling that life has neglected them to the point of despair that they decide to take their own life.”

Irish Association of Suicidology secretary Dr John Connolly said research had shown that motor fatalities increased the week after a suicide story.

He said the more publicity the suicides received, the more motor fatalities increased just afterwards. The increase was greatest in the areas where the suicide was most heavily publicised.