use of language and depression

[gipsyjulia]

hello dear all bus stop hang-outers,

by chance I stumbled on this article just now, found it somewhat interesting:

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2018-02-p...ently.html

does it mean that in future Siri or Alexa will be our therapists? strikes me as a funny notion, but I guess it's not too unlikely.

[Dragon]

@gipsyjulia  That's an interesting article, and your closing question is apt (and SCARY!!)

It really wouldn't surprise me to find therapists using such tools (voice and vocabulary analysis) in the future through Alexa (et al) which, in my opinion, is essentially them throwing up their hands and saying that they don't have a solution - try this!  And I for one have gotten real tired of 'trying this'.

I'm going to open up a different thread regarding the "suicidal ideation forum" that they mention in the article ... which really raises a lot of questions for me.

[Keralin]

I notice a small change in my choices of words when I'm depressed but I generally use a bit too much sarcasm and "negative" words regardless of my mood state. It's just part and parcel of my personality...or maybe I'm perpetually depressed although I often get the feeling that if a person doesn't fit within a narrow range of an arbitrary set of attributes (temperament, personality, mood), there's a propensity to pathologize that person's mind. I'm even guilty of doing this to myself, and that's the damage of being 'labeled' as mentally ill. The push to diagnose everyone outside of that 'ideal' range probably has a lot to do with the advent of SSRI's, but that's another discussion. Related to linguistic analysis, on the flip side of depression, I've actually identified some ostensibly manic periods during the past several years just based on the way I write, or how often I published something. It is kind of neat.

I have an app called Woebot, sort of a DIY CBT training app. It's fun but is it helpful? Not really. There's something to be said for face-to-face human interaction when it comes to therapy. AI may be better at logging information to track patterns (that's my interest in it) and predict future behaviors but an AI can't pick up on non-verbal cues and interpret them in a meaningful way - at least not yet. 

I asked my Google assistant if 'she' would be my friend. Response: "You're like the laptop to my wi-fi. We make a great team!" Good for a laugh, at least.

[gipsyjulia]

There's something to be said for face-to-face human interaction when it comes to therapy. AI may be better at logging information to track patterns (that's my interest in it) and predict future behaviors but an AI can't pick up on non-verbal cues and interpret them in a meaningful way - at least not yet.

hello Keralin,

yeah very true, although software is now under development to use your device's camera to track what you are looking at (part of screen) and for how long. This data is correlated with the content of the screen thus - well you see what I'm getting at; google's mission statement of "organising all the information in the world" seems to include as well trying to understand the mess inside my head and I seriously hope they fail.

Also I've seen something (documentary I think) about progress on machine learning for interpretation of facial expression and non-verbal communication... so what you refer to with "at least not yet" I rather think "kinda soon" which is... as Dragon has put it in the previous post - SCARY.

Hope you're doing ok today! The last bit about your experience with (wo)man-machine interaction made me laugh for the first time today

[Lurker.In.The.Night]

I find it creepy. It's horrible enough having to deal with depression on your own, let alone having someone else be able to peer into your mind. How is that going to help you? Are they gonna bombard us with banners that have suicide hotline numbers to soothe their guilty consciences?

All I want is a medication that works and makes me calm all the time. Not content, just calm and able to deal with things instead of blowing up, or not being able to get out of bed. I'm tired of being me.