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Suicide Effects: Designing for Death

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Suicide Effects: Designing for Death Suicide Effects: Designing for Death Jan Rod Connor Graham Martin Gibbs Graduate School of Media Design Asia Research Institute Dept of Information Systems Keio University National University of Singapore University of Melbourne Tokyo, Japan Singapore Victoria, Australia [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] ABSTRACT These four suicides happened on the Tokyo transportation This paper presents design ideas and suggestions for digital system and probably affected between 80 to 800 thousand signage systems within the Tokyo transportation system to people caught in the delay. Given these tragic events create and nurture social and community engagement happen in the highly engineered and designed space of around the phenomena of train suicide. This method of stations and rail tracks in a country with arguably the most taking one’s own life is widespread in Japan and repeatedly advanced public transport solutions, spaces that people cripples the schedules of trains creating delays. The authors have created, they provoke us to ask how we can confront of this study have conducted field research and interviewed death, specifically suicides on the Tokyo underground a number of participants on their perception of suicide in system, through design. While groups of commuters on a the train system and their observation of other passengers’ train may not be a community per se what we describe here behaviour. Our analysis has shown that a tragic act, such as presents an interesting problem for communities and suicide, offers multiple views and departure points for technologies and, specifically, issues of formation, non- design. The outcomes of the paper, aside from analysis of formation and dissolution of publics around particular collected data, are ideas and suggestions for designs and apparently traumatic events on the Tokyo Metro system. design guidance for particular urban spaces and insights Such groups and their formation may be somewhat into the design of urban systems that foster community transient but we argue such urban, ‘liquid communities’ are awareness and engagement. worthy of attention. Keywords The ‘take’ on the issue of death in interaction design has Design, Death, Suicide, Public display, Social media, almost always been medical and has focused on Urban Information Systems, Transport information provision. For instance, Reddy et al. [22] argue for the importance of “information work” in Surgical INTRODUCTION Intensive Care Unit nursing work and suggest that an At 5:15 p.m. that day, a 51-year-old man from Ibaraki adequate treatment of time has been neglected in Prefecture died after being hit by a train at a JR station in descriptions (and, by implication systems that have been Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward. A JR employee and several developed from such descriptions) of such work. However passengers saw the man jump on the track from the death and dying are multi-faceted, as the HCI and design- platform. Although no suicide note was found, the man had oriented communities are beginning to acknowledge [14]. a history of suicide attempts. At 5:55 p.m., a 65-year-old Strauss and Glaser [25] describe the different kinds of work man was killed by a train after entering a Keisei Line associated with death through chronic illness through their railway crossing in Tokyo's Katsushika Ward. The man had notion of “dying trajectory” including articulation work, no job, was on welfare and lived in a cheap lodging house information work and sentimental work. In such a view in Tokyo's Sanya district. According to his friends, the dying through chronic illness, perhaps somewhat coldly, man's health had been deteriorating. At 6:09 p.m., a has a “shape” and “critical junctures”. This perspective also woman believed to be a foreign national was run over by a acknowledges that there is more to managing chronic JR train in Saitama. She had been staying in Japan for the illness than simply the physical work of care and attending birth of her grandchild. “I had lots of stress because of the to the physiological needs of the cared for. However, death difference in the language and lifestyle (in Japan),” she and dying may not always be as unwillingly participated in said in a suicide note. At 7:25 p.m., a pharmacist jumped and affect different publics in different ways. toward an oncoming train from a station platform on the Tokyu Line in Yamato, Kanagawa Prefecture. The contents This paper addresses how to approach designs related to of the shoulder bag he had with him were scattered around suicides on the Tokyo underground. Approaching suicide in the site, including a memo that said, ‘I'm sorry.’.[2] a research study is difficult for all kinds of reasons, not least because of the sentimental aspects and the devastating impact on loved ones ‘left behind’. These reasons, among Copyright is held by the author/owner(s). others including constraints as ethical issues, mean suicide C&T’11, 29 June – 2 July 2011, QUT, Brisbane, Australia. remains largely unresearched from the point of view of ACM 978-1-4503-0824-3 31 Urban and Community Informatics. In this paper we since popular together with the so-called suicide forest deliberately focus on the consequences of sudden, intended (Aokigahara near Mt. Fuji), suggests a nation’s problems death through suicide on transport networks in Japan. We that are rooted not only economically, but also socially. acknowledge, as with dying trajectory, the different aspects However, suicide has a different social history in Japan and impacts of suicide on public transport networks from compared with other countries, as explored in depth by the perspective of the general publics affected. Pinguet [19]. He noted that while in many other highly developed countries suicide is stigmatised, in Japan it is SUICIDES IN JAPAN generally socially accepted as a valid solution to personal Japan has the 7th highest suicide rate with 49.5 suicides per problems. Pinguet attributes this to long history of suicide 100 thousand people according to World Health in Japan throughout both medieval and modern times, when Organisation data from 2009. Tokyo is one of the places it was seen as honourable way of ending one’s life for with the most occurrences. Over 30,000 people committed various reasons. The past prevalent practice of seppuku (or suicide in 2010 [1]. A recent Reuters [15] news report colloquially harakiri) [32], has arguably largely influenced describes how with regard to suicides in Japan: “although the higher social acceptance of suicide. Such deeply rooted depression was the most common cause, there were sharp tolerance is reflected even in the legal system of Japan, rises in the number of people in the 30-39 age group according to which suicide is not illegal in contrast to most thought to have committed suicide because they had failed other western, developed countries. to find a job, were unemployed, or were having difficulty making a living, the Mainichi said, citing the police”. While most suicides carried out in Japan are by their nature However, not only unemployed, young, productive men are private acts, train suicides are notable in terms of their a notable suicide group. Men in their 50s are also a high public implications – they influence a large number of risk group, according to this report: “the reason many men commuters. The Japanese transportation system holds first in their 50s commit suicide is to leave insurance money for place in numerous statistics, mostly for the number of their families”. people it transports every day. Shinjuku station is the busiest passenger terminal in the world, connecting 12 lines Suicide methods in contemporary Japan vary and evidence and serving 3.64 million people per day in 2007. Thus the somewhat worryingly points to suicides being influenced impact of suicide on commuters is considerable. The by trends and ‘popularisation’ through various media and statistics on how many people are actually affected by these the Internet. For example, in 2008, suicide through acts in peak hour varies by situation, as well as by hydrogen sulphide gas generated from a combination of researcher, but the number discussed is between 20 and 200 standard household products jumped from 29 occurrences thousands (according to the blog posts on in 2007 to 517 occurrences in 2008. This rise demonstrates http://www.aintnowaytogo.com/suicideByTrain.htm). The the potentially negative role of the Internet and media, as impact depends on time and location and train line, but the method has been described publicly in both, particularly with the vast majority of suicides happening after work on infamous suicide pact websites, analyzed by, for hours, the number is arguably very large. Any such example, Ozawa-de Silva [17]. Other common methods of statistics include both the people in the trains stopped on suicide in Japan include jumping off high places, hanging, the actual track as well as people waiting in the stations for or overdosing with drugs and medication and jumping in connections. front of moving objects, mostly trains [16]. Even though train-related suicides account for a relatively low number of The treatment of suicide itself is also very specific. As the cases in total, their consequences influence the general train system is historically very important in Japan and the public far more than any other method. According to Ojima need to minimize delays is high, the ‘cleanup’ of the site [16], in 1999 the category of ‘jumping in front of the usually happens very quickly, in about 20 to 40 minutes. moving object’ accounted for 2.3% of all suicides among Depending on the exact place of the suicide, it either males and 3.3% among women, resulting in 812 cases out involves the personnel of the station or the train staff of 31,413 in total.
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