cybersuicide

cybersuicide

English

Etymology

cyber- +‎ suicide

Noun

cybersuicide (countable and uncountable, plural cybersuicides)

1. Suicide assisted by computer technology, such as suicide committed by several people simultaneously after meeting on the Internet.
   • 2008, Megan-Jane Johnstone, Bioethics: A Nursing Perspective

     Reports such as these have underscored public health concerns about a cybersuicide epidemic...

   • 2009, John Haffner, Tomas Casas i Klett, Jean-Pierre Lehmann, Japan's Open Future: An Agenda for Global Citizenship

     There are also very dark chapters that have opened with the disturbing phenomenon of "cybersuicide," in which strangers meet online, form group suicide pacts, and then meet in person to execute their macabre plan together.

2. The deliberate destruction of one's own online persona.
   • 2004, Patricia R Schroeder, Robert Johnson, mythmaking, and contemporary American culture

     Self-constructed personae online (unlike the offline variety) can be abandoned or re-created at will; cybersuicide may simply provide the clearest path to a fresh start.

Related terms

• cybercide