Identification and Intervention in Online Social Networking Crises

Computer Mediated and Initiated Interventions

Steven Entezari

The overall goal of this research is to identify the opportunities and impacts of computerinitiated and mediated Interventions for individuals who present signs of psychological crises on social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, Bebo, and others. To achieve this we plan to utilize what we know about data mining, establish a dependable intervention structure suitable for online social communities, and measure the effects of computer or human-via-computer-initiated interventions to contribute towards the cyber-therapy paradigm. This research hopes to enhance current crisis intervention services by bringing awareness of available resources to the individual. As our social support systems continue to include more and more of our online communities, we have more opportunities to ask for help from others. However, due to the nature of online communities, and psychological effects associated with them (bystander effect, deindividuation, disinhabition, etc), many of these cries for help can go unanswered. For everyday life, outside of the virtual world, if an individual finds the need to get help, they have the opportunity to call one of many hotlines and speak to someone about their issues (such as suicidal tendencies, depression, abuse, or others). To address the dire consequences of unanswered cries for help now being discovered within online social support networks, a system could be put in place to intervene with those who send these cries for help to their social-support system, but do not receive adequate responses. A cry for help to an online community is usually a secondary attempt after their traditional real-world social support system. If help is not found here, there is no other attempt. At this point the individual has no other community to turn to. The model of crisis interventions via telephone hotline has been utilized across the world for a multitude of different crises. This type of crisis intervention is an attempt to offer the help necessary to an individual before that individual has the chance to develop pathological behavior patterns due to the crisis at-hand (Rosenbaum & Calhoun, 1977). In this model, the individual takes the initiative to contact the members of the hotline. However, a number of reasons exist for individuals in need not making that contact with such services. Some individuals simply do not know the existence of such services or resources to which they can refer to in their times of need. However, even if the individual is aware of the resources, they may feel more comfortable in an asynchronous situation allowing them time to compose their thoughts before responding (Salem, Bogat, & Reid, 1997). These individuals, in online communities, exemplify those who initiate cries for help to their social support systems. When their cries are answered, it is a great example of why social support systems are so beneficial to our psychosocial development. This work, however, focuses on those occasions when these cries are not answered and identifying opportunities to connect those individuals to the assistance they need. The anonymity and comfort of the Internet often leads people to disclose more personal information about themselves than they normally would in face-to-face communications (Joinson, 2001; Rheingold, 1993; Wallace, 1999). SAHAR (a Hebrew acronym), is an online project designed to provide individuals in crisis situations with a shoulder to lean on, a listening ear, and the warmth of an anonymous and skilled helper, demonstrates the effectiveness and utilization of online-intervention techniques (Barak, 2007). While SAHAR does address the importance and effectiveness of online interventions, individuals must still know about this resource and access it themselves. SAHAR is not automatically initiating the communication with the individual, as this research proposes to. The

question then becomes whether a computer itself can accurately and reliably identify personal crisis situations on social networking sites. Existing research demonstrates that data mining and computer analyses are valuable tools for crisis intervention. Tiong-Thye Goh and Yen-Pei Huang (2009) have found that it is possible to monitor youth depression risks in blogs and social media posts by comparing them to a dictionary of keywords and phrases from depressed persons. In addition, computer analyses of a suicidal persons self-reported tendencies and demographics resulted in a more accurate prediction of a suicidal attempt within three months of the analysis than compared to that of clinicians estimates (Gustafson, 1977; AEgisdottir, 2006). During the identification of potential crisis-related messages, a critical factor will be to identify those who have few social support interactions related to the crisis as well as those who have a history of similar crises presented. While existing research suggests a presently unexplored opportunity to initiate a fruitful intervention by a counselor assisted by an algorithm of a computer program, a major focus area for this research is to also discover how individuals in need will react to these computer- or human-via-computer-initiated interventions. There are a slew of potential implications for the cyber-therapy paradigm. The arena of cybertherapy relies on individuals to know of the existence of cyber-therapy before getting any help. Sites like Myspace and Google have began intelligently inserting psychological-help ads for messages that contain signs of depression or suicide (Goh & Huang, 2009; Huang, Goh, & Liew, 2007). Identification of crisismessages can allow a volunteer, professional, or possibly an automated agent to provide resources, an open ear, and even help to individuals that post pleas for help on communities like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and others. This could result in the creation of an alternative paradigm for the initiation of interventions, in which the computer algorithm helps to identify the individuals in need and make that connection between them and the resources they need. The idea here focuses around the fact that individuals are coming to their online social support systems for help. Usually this is a secondary-attempt, behind asking their traditional, real-world support system. If they dont get help here, there is no tertiary-attempt. The individual, at this point, has exhausted all social-support resources. At some point in the development of the Internet as a social utility, for the health and humanity of those who can not help themselves, there should be a way for these individuals to get the psychological resources they need. The contribution of the proposed research is to help address this very need.

Works Cited
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