Risks in Using Social Media to Spot Signs of Mental Distress
Risks in Using Social Media to Spot Signs of Mental Distress
AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTYou have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.Dec. 26, 2014The Samaritans, a well-known suicide-prevention group in Britain, recently introduced a free web app that would alert users whenever someone they followed on Twitter posted worrisome phrases like “tired of being alone” or “hate myself.” A week after the app was introduced on its website, more than 4,000 people had activated it, the Samaritans said, and those users were following nearly 1.9 million Twitter accounts, with no notification to those being monitored. But just about as quickly, the group faced an outcry from people who said the app, called Samaritans Radar, could identify and prey on the emotionally vulnerable — the very people the app was created to protect. “A tool that ‘lets you know when your friends need support’ also lets you know when your stalking victim is vulnerable #SamaritansRadar,” a Briton named Sarah Brown posted on Twitter. A week and a half after the app’s introduction, the Samaritans announced it was reconsidering the outreach program and disabled the app. Social media posts offer a vast array of information — things as diverse as clues about the prevalence of flu, attitudes toward smoking and patterns of prescription drug abuse. Academic researchers, often in partnership with social media platforms, have mined this data in the hopes of gaining more timely insights into population-scale health trends. The National Institutes of Health, for instance, recently committed more than $11 million to support studies into using sites like Twitter and Facebook to better understand, prevent and treat substance abuse.Facebook and OkCupid, a popular dating site, have also conducted experiments in which the companies manipulated content presented to their own members to study the impact on their behavior.Now a handful of research and nonprofit groups are analyzing social media postings with the aim of detecting and predicting patterns in mental health conditions. The experience of the Samaritans highlights the perils involved.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT