A new study published in Pediatrics explains that YouTube has a library of videos including people self-injuring themselves. Many of the videos are nonsuicidal, but most of them show the person or people injuring themselves.
These videos are classified as non-suicidal self-injury, or NSSI.
For the study, researchers analyzed 100 videos on YouTube, delving into the statistics about what is being watched.
The study found that each of the top 100 videos containing individuals injuring themselves had at least 2,000,000 (two million) views. Of those 100 videos, around 80 were publicly viewable.
Most of the videos had an abundance of positive ratings by viewers, and in most cases, the videos appeared to be instructional.
The most common form of self-injury in the videos was cutting.
In nearly 60 percent of the videos, the publisher offered no warning about potentially explicit content.
Experts warn about the potential dangers of this type of content, and explain that health professionals may need to closely monitor patients who are potentially self-injuring.
Additionally, these videos may be sending incorrect messages to viewers, and experts urge that this content be viewed with caution.