BOCA RATON, FL (Boca Post) (Copyright © 2025) — A new study out of Florida Atlantic University is shining a harsh light on who is spending time on the dark web — and what they may be dealing with offline.
Using survey data from 2,000 adults in the United States, researchers found that people who report using the dark web show significantly higher levels of depression, paranoia, suicidal thoughts, self-injury and digital self-harm than adults who stick to the surface web. The work was led by Ryan C. Meldrum, Ph.D., director of the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice within FAU’s College of Social Work and Criminal Justice. Source: FAU
The study, published in the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, compared dark web users to surface web users across five mental health indicators. The differences were stark. Adults who reported suicidal thoughts had nearly three times greater odds of also reporting dark web use. Those who reported non-suicidal self-injury, such as cutting or burning themselves, were nearly five times more likely to say they used the dark web.
The biggest gap showed up around digital self-harm — when someone anonymously posts hurtful or negative comments about themselves online. Individuals who engaged in that behavior had more than 19 times greater odds of reporting dark web use.
Researchers say the findings suggest dark web use may be driven, at least in part, by mental health struggles rather than only privacy concerns. The dark web is a hidden corner of the internet accessed through privacy tools like the Tor browser. It does not appear in traditional search engines and is designed to shield identities and activity, prioritizing anonymity over transparency.
The dark web has been around for more than 20 years, but there has been relatively little research directly comparing the mental health of dark web users to those who stay on the surface web. Its pseudo-anonymous nature and focus on privacy have long raised questions about who is drawn there and why. Until now, those questions have rarely been tested with large-scale data.
Meldrum and his co-authors — Raymond D. Partin, Ph.D., University of Alabama; Peter S. Lehmann, Ph.D., Sam Houston State University; and Salpi S. Kevorkian, Florida International University — say their results point to a group that has mostly stayed outside the reach of traditional mental health research and outreach.
“Our findings suggest that many individuals who turn to the dark web may be doing so not just for privacy concerns, but as a reflection of deeper mental health struggles and the possible desire to socialize and engage in information-seeking in a context free of scrutiny that might otherwise be experienced on the surface web or offline,” Meldrum said in the university’s release. He added that the dark web “isn’t just a technological frontier – it’s a human one, where vulnerability and pain often go unseen.”
The study’s authors argue that this has real-world implications for how social workers, therapists and other mental health professionals approach online spaces. If people wrestling with depression, paranoia, self-injury or suicidal thoughts are clustering on the dark web, the researchers say, then ignoring those hidden platforms could mean missing some of the most vulnerable.
Equipping mental health practitioners to safely and ethically engage with people in these environments, they argue, could open new paths to support individuals who might never walk into a clinic or talk openly on mainstream social media. Raising awareness among parents, educators and policymakers about this link — much like current conversations about problematic social media use — could also be an important step.
“The dark web may seem like a world apart, but the psychological challenges many people bring into this space are very real,” Meldrum said. “We cannot afford to overlook these digital environments simply because they are used by a subset of internet users. If we are committed to reaching the most vulnerable, we must be willing to engage with them – even in the more hidden corners of the internet.”
