Social Media Sentiments on Suicides at the New York City Landmark, Vessel (Preprint)

Abstract

Vessel is a visitor attraction created by Thomas Heatherwick and his Heatherwick Studio as a focal point where people can enjoy new perspectives of New York City from different heights, angles, and vantage points. However, four young people jumped to their deaths from Vessel between February 2020 and July 2021. Effective preventive solutions have yet to be identified and the site is currently closed.

To examine the trajectory of public sentiment on suicide-related activity at Vessel based on Twitter and monitor the level of public support to implement effective suicide preventive measures.

Using a bottom-up approach, we investigated the engagement patterns and themes in Twitter discussions about the four suicide deaths at Vessel from February 2020 to August 2021 (n = 3,165 tweets).

The results show that there were increasing discussions about each successive suicide case in the first 14 days following each incident (7 and 11 daily tweets for the first and second case, 100 and 107 daily tweets for the fourth case). It also took longer for relevant discussions to dissipate (4 days for the first case, 8 days for the second and the third cases, and 14 days for the fourth case). Thematic analysis showed that the themes shifted from emotional expression in the second case to urging suicide prevention actions in the fourth case.

We detected growing support from the public for imposing restrictions of means to prevent further death at Vessel on Twitter. We suggest that if Vessel is to re-open, barriers should be erected to avert further suicides and, if this is too difficult, then Vessel should remain permanently closed. Furthermore, architects and designers are strongly advised to be more sensitive to vulnerable populations and avoid any possible unintended adverse consequences in their creations.