Jan 29, 2022 02:58 AM
A suicide hotline is sharing people’s data with a for profit company
https://futurism.com/neoscope/suicide-ho...aring-data
INTRO: In news that feels truly grim, Politico published an exclusive report this week that found the Crisis Text Line, one of the busiest suicide crisis hotlines, is sharing data collected from people experiencing trauma and depression with a related entity that’s using the data to train customer service agents.
According to Politico‘s reporting, the nonprofit has a for-profit spinoff called Loris.ai. The Crisis Text Line told Politico that any data it shares with Loris is stripped of details that could trace the data back to a person, thereby making it anonymous. The organization also claimed the info is used to better the customer service AI that Loris.ai sells.
But no matter the intention, such a sharing of personal data is ethically dubious and could be damaging.
“These are people at their worst moments,” Jennifer King, privacy and data policy fellow at Stanford University, told Politico. “Using that data to help other people is one thing, but commercializing it just seems like a real ethical line for a nonprofit to cross.”
In 2019, researchers from the UK published a study in the journal Nature that found it’s often pretty easy to identify people in anonymized datasets... (MORE - details)
Social media is having a negative impact on teenagers’ mental health
https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/so...tal-health
EXCERPTS: Excessive social media use can come at the expense of real-world interactions, which can worsen any existing forms of depression and anxiety, says Judith Anderson, a health psychologist at the University of Toronto in Canada. “I’ve noticed a malaise that’s happening with teenagers lately – and I mean more than just the regular teenage angst of not knowing what to do with life,” she says...
[...] Studies back up Anderson’s claim. According to a report by Pew Research, as many as 45 percent of teenagers are said to be online “almost constantly.” Online isolation in which a person is constantly scrolling through social media feeds can end up giving them a false view of how the real world works, says Anderson, especially for teenagers going through such a formative phase of their life.
“Doomscrolling can also cause raised anxiety, muscle tension, migraines and brain fatigue. All of this can be biochemically and physiologically measured,” says Anderson. “It drains your overall energy to study or do whatever else you want to do.”
Too much screen time is especially a concern for victims of bullying because the abuse no longer stops at the school gates. [...] there are practical things that parents can do to help.
First thing’s first, parents need to set an example. “Parents have to put their phone down to model it to their kids,” says Anderson. Additionally, it can be helpful for parents to establish rules for when and where their teenagers are allowed to scroll.
[...] Parents can also help their children “train” the algorithms to prioritize happy, positive content rather than negative and draining posts. TikTok and Instagram Reels, for example, show their users what they think they want to see, and it bases that decision on what other things that person has been posting and watching. [...] “It’s not just what you look at, but how long you look at it,” says Anderson. “Parents can pick up their kids’ phones and help with that.” (MORE - missing details)
https://futurism.com/neoscope/suicide-ho...aring-data
INTRO: In news that feels truly grim, Politico published an exclusive report this week that found the Crisis Text Line, one of the busiest suicide crisis hotlines, is sharing data collected from people experiencing trauma and depression with a related entity that’s using the data to train customer service agents.
According to Politico‘s reporting, the nonprofit has a for-profit spinoff called Loris.ai. The Crisis Text Line told Politico that any data it shares with Loris is stripped of details that could trace the data back to a person, thereby making it anonymous. The organization also claimed the info is used to better the customer service AI that Loris.ai sells.
But no matter the intention, such a sharing of personal data is ethically dubious and could be damaging.
“These are people at their worst moments,” Jennifer King, privacy and data policy fellow at Stanford University, told Politico. “Using that data to help other people is one thing, but commercializing it just seems like a real ethical line for a nonprofit to cross.”
In 2019, researchers from the UK published a study in the journal Nature that found it’s often pretty easy to identify people in anonymized datasets... (MORE - details)
Social media is having a negative impact on teenagers’ mental health
https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/so...tal-health
EXCERPTS: Excessive social media use can come at the expense of real-world interactions, which can worsen any existing forms of depression and anxiety, says Judith Anderson, a health psychologist at the University of Toronto in Canada. “I’ve noticed a malaise that’s happening with teenagers lately – and I mean more than just the regular teenage angst of not knowing what to do with life,” she says...
[...] Studies back up Anderson’s claim. According to a report by Pew Research, as many as 45 percent of teenagers are said to be online “almost constantly.” Online isolation in which a person is constantly scrolling through social media feeds can end up giving them a false view of how the real world works, says Anderson, especially for teenagers going through such a formative phase of their life.
“Doomscrolling can also cause raised anxiety, muscle tension, migraines and brain fatigue. All of this can be biochemically and physiologically measured,” says Anderson. “It drains your overall energy to study or do whatever else you want to do.”
Too much screen time is especially a concern for victims of bullying because the abuse no longer stops at the school gates. [...] there are practical things that parents can do to help.
First thing’s first, parents need to set an example. “Parents have to put their phone down to model it to their kids,” says Anderson. Additionally, it can be helpful for parents to establish rules for when and where their teenagers are allowed to scroll.
[...] Parents can also help their children “train” the algorithms to prioritize happy, positive content rather than negative and draining posts. TikTok and Instagram Reels, for example, show their users what they think they want to see, and it bases that decision on what other things that person has been posting and watching. [...] “It’s not just what you look at, but how long you look at it,” says Anderson. “Parents can pick up their kids’ phones and help with that.” (MORE - missing details)
