Can High-Tech Help Combat Mental Health Issues?

Editor’s Note: Ben Heubl is a UK-based data journalist and digital health enthusiast who has founded both a digital health company and a non-profit medical organization. Recently, Heubl published an article on nuviun.com exploring the role of high-tech solutions in helping people combat mental health issues, as well as the challenges currently faced. VCBeat has translated his article for our readers to provide insights into the current state of development and bottlenecks in this field.

How to Leverage High-Tech Solutions to Combat Mental Health Issues?

In comparison, women are more prone to suicidal ideation and suicide attempts, yet men are four times more likely than women to die by suicide. Why? Because men are less likely to discuss their emotions openly or report mental health issues. This reluctance among men to show vulnerability stems partly from genetic factors and partly from cultural pressures.

The internet serves as a window through which people open their hearts to the outside world—online, they often feel more comfortable discussing private matters. Emotion mapping can detect emotional cues that people reveal through Google searches and social media activity. People rarely use emojis to convey sarcasm; instead, subtle indicators such as mouse movement patterns can provide insights into their mental states, including fatigue, anxiety, and negativity. The internet may offer our first clues for understanding mental illness.

Several companies are adopting fatigue-detection technologies to alert individuals and/or their managers when anxiety arises. Facebook has a suicide-prevention feature that can detect various dangerous emotional patterns in users. The Samaritans developed a similar voluntary tracking app, but it was withdrawn for ethical reasons. Consequently, the Samaritans’ charity delayed the launch of its Twitter app, which monitors tweets from users’ friends containing depression-related language to help prevent adverse incidents.

VCBeat has previously reported that, according to the latest psychological research, Twitter and the language used on the platform may serve as robust predictors of coronary heart disease. By analyzing negative emotions reflected in tweets, such as stress, fatigue, and anger, researchers have identified psychological factors as significant markers, suggesting thatUsers with a more positive tone on Twitter have a lower risk of disease.。

The onset of mental illness most commonly occurs during adolescence and the twenties, an age range that coincides precisely with the most active users of social media and high-tech platforms.

So, will high technology ultimately lead to higher rates of mental illness among young people, or will it become a tool for combating mental health disorders? According to the 2013 “Teens and Technology” report by the Pew Research Center, 37% of teenagers owned smartphones, up from just 23% in 2011. Smartphones allow users to access online social media and the internet, meaning they can be leveraged to provide mood tracking and online mental health support. Furthermore, 93% of teenagers have their own computer or access to one at home; among those with home computers, 71% reported that the laptop or desktop they used most often was shared with family members. Twenty-three percent of teenagers owned tablets, a proportion comparable to that of adults.

Online bullying and internet shaming are intensifying, yet the feasibility of detecting such behaviors is also increasing. The Guardian in the UK reported on a new study finding that, in the long term, children who are bullied by their peers are more likely to experience mental health issues.

According to the study, bullying specifically refers to peer bullying at a given point in time. Overall mental health problems are defined as having anxiety, depression, self-harm, or suicidal tendencies.

Emotion mapping techniques (such as those applied to Twitter, as mentioned in an article in *New Scientist*) may identify potential issues and guide affected users to seek professional help for early intervention.

Technically, everything seems to be in place, with only the final catalyst missing. However, from an ethical perspective, would this approach be overly authoritarian? Would people truly want their employers to know how poorly their day has gone? Would teenagers be comfortable with their parents searching for them online? Who should oversee these technologies, and who should be subject to such oversight? If we aim to leverage high-tech solutions to combat mental illness, these questions must first be addressed.

VCBeat Internet Healthcare Research Institute’s study on startups in the psychological health sector reveals that developers are primarily medical/consulting institutions and school mental health centers, along with some individual developers and entrepreneurial teams. These solutions mainly take the form of videos, radio programs, text-and-image content, audio, and games, aiming to alleviate patients’ psychological stress and achieve therapeutic effects. Click for detailsHere。
Detailed Analysis of Internet Healthcare Apps for Autism
Acumen: A New Approach to Remote Video-Based Autism Treatment
12 Expert-Recommended Apps for Autism Treatment