Can a suicide inducer be a counsellor?
Feb 29, 2024
The stories are numerous, showing what will happen if the key to the wardrobe is given to a thief, or if a company that makes poison gets a license to manufacture anti-poison products.
Recently, I read a report about Mumbai police seeking help from Meta to identify young people suffering from suicide tendencies and help them locate the victims. Today, we have a lot of evidence that young people are killing themselves due to the high use of social media.
It is common for Meta's CEO to be criticized for this allegation, especially after Instagram became popular. Today, most people spend a great deal of time on social media, knowingly or unknowingly. Scrolling has become an insatiable habit. Nobody knows whether it has any benefits or losses, or what kind of difference it makes in their mind. This kind of exercise is not enjoyable, but it robs people of time and spoils their minds. People make comparisons based on what they see on social media, not taking a moment to think about what is happening. Many smartphones make people look smart and handsome. There are many applications to edit photos and videos that make people giddy. We have lots of options. None of them could be real. All such videos and photos rule social media. Still, we think it's real and get jealous. Apart from the fact that people are constantly changing their status, many of us still believe it's real and compare with each other, and then we feel sad at the end of the day.
Many people who have used social media and smartphones for a long time must have encountered a suicide feeling. The reasons for thoughts must be different each time. Some who are not active on social media but do not have a real friend to share their feelings with also might have considered suicide as a solution to their problems. In other words, after the tech era, everyone at least at once might have thought of committing suicide.
Depression is the villain that compels one to commit suicide. Even 1000 years ago one tended to commit suicide, especially educated people. At the same time, there is no study of animals having suicide tendencies. Studies show social media and technology induce depression. There could be no denial to say more than 50 per cent of the population is in depression. The more time kids aged between nine and 11 years spend on screens, the higher their chances of suicidal behaviours two years later. Each additional hour of screen time increases the risk by nine per cent.
When Meta itself is the culprit of such a situation, and instead of controlling this company again, officials depend on the company to trace the victim. I know today it is impossible to control tech giants by the government, as they have grown beyond their control. It shows we do not have any option to escape them. They will continue to overrule us.
Finally, humans created a competitive and comparing world which in turn creates the suicide tendency. When we are in no position to control this lifestyle there is no possibility of controlling the tendency. In most of the suicide stories, "technology" is the real villain, the chief inducer and the first accused. More precisely, now let us call it AI.
SAJIKUMAR
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