Social Media The Key to Kids Mental Health

When Facebook hit the headlines recently for ‘experimenting’ on its users by looking at the link between status updates and emotional wellbeing, there was a huge outcry from the public.
 

The unauthorized experiment gained the ire of Facebook users and also attracted the interest of the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office, who is currently investigating whether the social media giant breached data regulations.

But while this experiment was conducted under less than ideal circumstances, what is does highlight is the way that social media is linked to emotional wellbeing and how this link could be used for those that need help.

This interesting insight into the way that people’s emotions are displayed and affected by social media is confirmed by a study conducted here in Australia that looked at the role of social media in young people’s mental health.

The Benefits of Social Networking Services study was conducted by the University of Western Sydney, Murdoch University and the Inspire Foundation concluded that social media can deliver educational outcomes; facilitate supportive relationships; aid in identity formation; and promote a sense of belonging and self esteem. 

And now social media is also being used to help identify when young people may be in distress or need help in a new experimental research project called ‘CyberMate’.

Currently being developed by the University of Sydney and youth mental health charity, Reachout.com, CyberMate is essentially a virtual moderator that will aid human moderators of online mental health support groups.

Using data mining and natural language processing (NLP), (the same tools that are used to target the ads that you see on your Facebook feed) CyberMate analyses and ‘reads’ the posts of users within specific online mental health support groups and checks posts for words or phrases that could indicate distress.

This system will then flag this event to the human moderator of the site that they can initiate appropriate intervention in the quickest timeframe possible. The system can also act as a ‘virtual psychotherapist’ and engage with the young online user suggesting options for help or support via email or SMS.

Source : parents[dot]nickjr[dot]com[dot]au