The United States celebrates the month of Mental Health Awareness in May at a time when in the American country – and in many others in the West – there is great concern about the psychological discomfort of its citizens. Given the increase in searches for concepts such as “mental health crisis”, and on the occasion of the special occasion that is being celebrated, Google has announced that text messages that provide help to suicide will be added to the search results for terms related to suicide. the users.
“People often turn to Google search in some of their most vulnerable moments. In the context of a crisis, it is essential to instill hope and provide simple information that is easy to apply, ”wrote Google’s director of mental health and consumers, Megan Jones Bell, on the blog of the same search engine owned by Alphabet. With this measure, created in collaboration with the International Association for Suicide Prevention, they hope to help people who are in a mental health crisis.
When people do a suicide-related search in the United States, Google will display prewritten help messages under the heading “988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline,” a 24-hour phone line. It will offer three options for those who do the search: phone call, open a chat or access the official website of the help service.
The chat will have some pre-written text messages like “I’m struggling right now and just need to talk to someone, can we chat?” to “When you get the chance, can you contact me? I feel lonely and suicidal, I could use some urgent support.”
“When someone is in a vulnerable situation, it can be difficult to put this experience into words and know what to say to ask for help,” Jones Campana explained on the Google blog. “These pre-written prompts, developed in partnership with the expertise of the International Association for Suicide Prevention, reduce the stigma of asking for help, which has been shown to help people get support in times of crisis,” she added.
Google already began using artificial intelligence to speed up search detection of people in crisis last year, as well as removing content that promotes eating disorders on YouTube. It also added age restrictions and crisis center resource panels below videos and research on these types of disorders.
New content designed for children with mental health problems has also been implemented on YouTube. In a joint effort with the Child Mind Institute, they have created a series of videos under the name
In fact, Google grants $100,000 to the organization to “support its daily operations”, as confirmed from their blog, in addition to showing support to other entities and groups through Google.org, such as ReflexAI. With them they are helping them create HomeTeam, a tool that, as they indicate, “will equip more veterans to better support each other and encourage their peers to seek additional support when necessary.”