Preventing Suicide or Self-Harm on Social Media

Three weeks ago, one of my friends was extremely distressed. She had been suffering from depression for over two years and would routinely go offline, switch off her phone, and just totally disappear from the world.

Over the past year she deactivated her Facebook account, stopped posting on Instagram, and was active only on Twitter - where she used to post random tweets about depression. I tried to reach her all this while but to no avail - I just couldn't get through to her. One week ago, she had a nervous breakdown.

After spending around a week in hospital, she's finally the person she was a long time ago. In all this time, we wish we'd encouraged her more often to seek professional assistance. We've seen plenty of people use Twitter as a medium to air their depressed thoughts. If you spend your time on Facebook or Instagram, we're pretty sure you'd have noticed people using these platforms in a similar way. Is there anything you can do to help? Turns out the answer is yes.

Reaching out to people in distress can help a lot. In some cases, seeking professional assistance is the only option. Instagram recently unveiled its tools to help people who're thinking of hurting themselves. Nicky Jackson Colaco, Director of Public Policy, Instagram told Gadgets 360, "We listen to mental health experts when they tell us that outreach from a loved one can make a real difference for those who may be in distress. At the same time, we understand friends and family often want to offer support but don't know how best to reach out."

That's one of the trickiest parts of reaching out to people in distress. Sometimes they just shut down when you try to breach the subject and get them to talk. If you aren't sure how best to help them, try to find out if they're just having a bad day or if they're genuinely in danger of self-harm. The Suicide Prevention Lifeline has a great checklist of things you can go through if you don't know how best to go about this. Some of the signs are rather obvious, such as people talking about wanting to die or to kill themselves, while others such as sleeping too little or too much, withdrawing or isolating themselves, may not be so easy to spot.

Instead of asking people to "just snap out of it" on social media, you can offer support by using the tools these platforms offer. Just search "suicide" on Google or DuckDuckGo, and you'll find a local helpline number right at the top. You could just call the number and ask the organisation to help. If that isn't an option, using the tools offered by social media platforms is a good idea. Twitter's guide to preventing self-harm is just as useful. It tells you how to identify signs of a person wanting to harm themselves. Note that many people tweet about depression because their friends and family members are less likely to be on Twitter than other social media platforms.

Instagram's Colaco says, "These tools are designed to let you know that you are surrounded by a community that cares about you, at a moment when you might most need that reminder. We work with organisations who are experts in self-injury and suicide prevention." These tools are available for India as well. "In India, Facebook has a relationship with The Live Love Laugh Foundation and AASRA, and we are extending our partnership with them. We are continually looking for additional partners and ways to improve the support we provide to the Instagram community," says Colaco.

Instagram's parent company Facebook has its own page to help people prevent self-harm. These tools were made available to everyone in June 2016. In a note posted on the FB Safety page, Antigone Davis, Global Head of Safety and Jennifer Guadagno, Researcher at Facebook, wrote: "Now, with the help of these new tools, if someone posts something on Facebook that makes you concerned about their well-being, you can reach out to them directly - and you also can also report the post to us. We have teams working around the world, 24x7, who review reports that come in. They prioritise the most serious reports like self-injury."