Facebook, frequently associated with pointless status updates and potentially career-ending pictures, doesn’t usually come to mind when one thinks of mental health counseling.
Yet it has started a new anti-suicide feature which allows users to chat with a counselor after a friend ‘flags’ them for posting troubling content online—and college therapists, far from being wary of one day losing their jobs to the ubiquitous social network, think the idea can help make a real difference.
“I think it would provide opportunities for students who might not reach out to other places,” said Keith Anderson, PhD, a staff psychologist for the Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute. “For a lot of folks, if they’re really unhappy, they’ll resist care- but if they do it online, they might feel better protected.”
In fact, a study by the National Research Consortium noted that while 74 percent of college students say that social networking sites like Facebook are an “important tool in staying connected to others,” only 35 percent said these sites were important in helping them reach out for support during stressful times.
That’s why Chris Brownson, PhD, the head of the University of Texas-Austin’s counseling center and the director of the study mentioned above, welcomes Facebook’s new initiative.
“Suicide prevention is the responsibility of the entire community, not just mental health professionals,” said Brownson. “Only half of suicidal college students tell anyone about their suicidal thoughts- and of those that do, two-thirds of the time they tell a peer. I applaud social media sites that enable options to facilitate help-seeking for individuals in distress, such as what Facebook has done.”
Of course, Facebook is not perfect at keeping college students depression-free. Marcus Hotaling, Phd, the Director of Counseling at Union College, noted that a new type of depression called “Facebook Depression” is gaining ground.
“It’s mainly caused by two things: first off, everyone else’s life seems great on Facebook—no one’s posting ‘hey, I just got divorced!” said Hotaling. “And then there’s also a lack of empathy on Facebook—people will say things on Facebook that they wouldn’t say in real life.”
But Hotaling is still confident Facebook’s initiative is good for college students, for which suicide remains one of the leading causes of death.
“You have schools with 50,000 students, where many might not even know there’s a counseling center on campus,” Hotaling said, “Ideally the Facebook counselor chat session will offer students the kind of resources they need, and refer them to a counselor on campus.”
Suicide rates for college students are half of those who are not in college but are of the same age. Yet suicide remains an important issue on college campuses, and Facebook may have finally given a good excuse for some at-risk students to spend time ‘Facebooking’ in their dorms.
Photo by: epSos.de
This article was originally published on GenWhyPress.com
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