These researchers investigated a group of suicides of New Zealand adolescents thought to be a cluster. They also investigated the possible role of online social networking and SMS text messaging as sources of contagion after a suicide. Not all of the cases belonged to a single school; several were linked by social networking sites, including sites created in memory of earlier suicide cases, as well as mobile telephones. These facilitated the rapid spread of information and rumour about the deaths throughout the community and made it harder to recognise and manage a possible cluster.
