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Monitoring posts on social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace could help to prevent suicide, according to two researchers from New Zealand's Victoria University.

Dr. Tiong-Thye Goh and student assistant Yen-Pei Huang have developed a decision support system to scan social networking sites to flag keywords that people between the ages of 18 and 24 are posting. A high proportion of certain keywords could mean that a user is at risk of depression, suicide and other mental disorders.

Dr. Tiong-Thye Goh

"When young people are emotionally distressed for instance, instead of the traditional channel of consulting friends, parents or specialists, social networking blogs may provide a channel to share and release their emotions and intentions," said Dr. Goh.

"Our technology picks up words or phrases such as 'depressed', or 'I don't want to live any more' or 'I want to kill somebody'. We analyze the database of phrases and rank them according to frequency of use - if certain key words are used a lot it is likely that the particular person may be emotionally depressed."

The next step for the researchers is to see if approaching people who may be at risk is effective. The researchers are weighing sending messages to these people and asking, "How are you?" with three different response options- "Good," "A bit down," or "Bad-need help."

"The option of needing help would link to an appropriate website that provides useful information and links," said Dr. Goh.

The researchers say they are working on fine-tuning the technology to improve identification of young people at risk and remove false alarms. Ultimately they would like to see an e-monitoring service used by social networks to engage people at risk.