Twitter postings and suicide: An analysis of the postings of a fatal suicide in the 24 hours prior to death

In the 24 hours prior to her death by suicide, a young girl made 145 posts on Twitter. In the posts, she outlines her history of incestuous sexual abuse, rape, and risky sexual behavior. These posts were analyzed using the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC). Trends were found indicating an increase in positive emotions over the 24 hours and a change in focus from the self to others. This first study of posts on Twitter by a person about to commit suicide provides hypotheses for future studies of this medium for communication.