The Cost of Suicide Prevention Software
What Next: TBD | Tech, power, and the future
Deep Dive
What percentage of American schoolchildren are estimated to have mental health monitoring software on their devices?
Between a third and a half of American schoolchildren have some form of mental health monitoring software on their devices.
Why did the police visit Maddie Cholka's house in the middle of the night?
The police visited Maddie Cholka's house because her message about planning to take her life was flagged by GoGuardian Beacon, a monitoring software used by her school. The alert was reviewed by a human and escalated to the school's head of counseling, who called the police.
What are some concerns raised about the use of mental health monitoring software in schools?
Concerns include false positives, privacy issues, compromised trust between students and faculty, and the potential for outing queer or trans kids through their searches. Additionally, there are worries about the software being used to detect violence, which could lead to unnecessary police involvement.
How do schools typically handle alerts flagged by mental health monitoring software?
Schools typically handle alerts by first reviewing them through human oversight. If the alert is deemed serious, such as an 'active planning alert,' the student is pulled out of class and administered a suicide screening test. In cases where alerts occur outside school hours, law enforcement may be contacted to conduct well-child visits.
What happened to Maddie Cholka after the police intervention?
After the police intervention and hospitalization, Maddie Cholka returned home and school but continued to struggle with suicidal thoughts. She became more cautious about what she typed on her Chromebook to avoid detection by the monitoring software. Tragically, she died by suicide the following year.
What is the Columbia Suicide Screening Test, and how is it used in schools?
The Columbia Suicide Screening Test is a six-question tool designed to assess the severity of someone's suicidal thoughts and determine if they need hospitalization. Schools use it when a student is flagged by monitoring software for active planning of self-harm.
Why is there a lack of independent data on the efficacy of mental health monitoring software?
There is a lack of independent data because the companies providing these tools are private and compete for contracts, making them reluctant to share proprietary information. Additionally, schools and districts have not demanded robust data on sensitivity, positive predictive value, or other metrics to evaluate the software's effectiveness.
How did the monitoring software impact the relationship between students and faculty in Lawrence Public Schools?
In Lawrence Public Schools, students argued that the monitoring software undermined trust between them and faculty because their communications were being intercepted and filtered. They believed that allowing private conversations would foster greater trust.
Shownotes Transcript