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As in Durkheim's day, persons often come to cities, leaving family and home behind to seek their fortunes but only find loneliness. Also, one would also expect to see suicides more often in college students and young worker who traveled far from their original homes, and were unable to adapt to a new community. These persons are often forced to form social ties with strangers, and forced to create a new schema of values that might conflict with their parental values. If unable to do so, they may feel unable to return to their own way of life, but seem to have no future.
Rural communities might also show high levels of suicide, if sufficiently isolated from nearby towns, and if populated by houses that are sparsely, rather than closely located together and discourage community ties. These communities could be just as lonely as urban apartments. Diverse communities, without social institutions that bind sub-communities together, like synagogues, mosques, or churches, might show higher rates of suicide. Individuals who are culturally different from most of their neighbors might have a higher rate of suicide as well.
Patterns...
Young people, as often one moves away, in America from one's family when one is young, might have higher rates of suicide than older persons who have established community ties. As young persons are less apt to begin a family early on in their lives today, this might also become a factor in a high suicide rate amongst persons in their twenties
Finally, a last pattern common to modern America that reflects Durkheim's theory may be that of leisure time pursuits. Persons who increasingly seek out solitary means of enjoyment, like surfing the Internet, watching movies and playing video games, or listening to music alone may be more apt to commit suicide, as their pleasures do not tie them to others in real life, in any meaningful way. The mode of leisure as well as work can create the necessary social and emotional conditions of suicide, according to Durkheim's theory of suicide.
Works Cited
Durkheim, Emile. (1951) Suicide: A Study in Sociology. Translated by George Simpson and John A. Spaulding. New York: The Free Press.
Works Cited
Durkheim, Emile. (1951) Suicide: A Study in Sociology. Translated by George Simpson and John A. Spaulding. New York: The Free Press.
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