How Youtube is Helping People antidote Self-Harm

In the world of social media and its effects on people, there are several players that compete for attention and followers. One player is YouTube. The other is Facebook. Both of these sites have their own content channels but they’re also one-stop shops for anyone who wants to create their own videos and share them with the world. Whether you’re a filmmaker or an aspiring actor, you can upload your own videos — and share your videos with the world — from anywhere. Self-Harm From both sides of the camera, we see self-harm as a form of excess that needs to be stopped. It’s not just a matter of self-harm being harmful but also what kind of people engage in it, how long it lasts, and how much information is available about it (self-help books? restorative practices? more details). In this article, we dive into some of the ways that Youtube is helping people stop self-harm by countering it with restorative practices. So what's the big deal? Let's explore why people are using social media to fight self-harm and how you can get involved yourself

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Today I was mindlessly Scrolling through Youtube shorts, when I came across a video where GOD OF WAR Kratos was jumping off a cliff, and the Track accompanying it and the visulas were just mesmerising to me and I liked it a lot and then I was listening to a different version of the same video and then found out the name of the track and listened to the track in typical me fashion the track is named Dream On by Aerosmith, then I remembered I had an errand to run and forgot all about it, but the Almighty Youtube algorithm never forgets and I was recommended the same Video of Kratos again, I opened it and to my surprise, I was greeted with a help message telling me to call or talk to people and to get help if I am feeling low and depressed. Now I will admit I rarely care about such messages but this one stuck, and I have no idea why, cause even though I am mostly not a very bubbly person but I am not having any kind of offing myself type of thoughts, And hence I dug a little deeper and found that a Teenager literally jumped of a cliff while listening to Aerosmith Dream on, on a 60 min loop, there are literally a lot of such videos on short how I did not come across them is a surprise to me, But the Thing is I like how Youtube is using the algorithm to find out potentially Mentally unhealthy people and trying to help, can literally sometimes, only that one prompt, one notification can pull someone out of the bad head space and make them realize what they are doing is not GOOD

Personal experience of watching a YouTube video

My first experience was watching a YouTube video is from YouTube name BB ki vines,it was my first exposure to YouTube as that time you tube was not a viable choice for Indians because the internet services were very expensive so we only got one or two GB of data for a month and we could not really watch videos so we use to watch a short form content back then like BB ki vines and Ashish chanchlani vines these were vines creator who were famous and at that time in India who exploded in popularity
When I first watched videos they were generally fun and I had never experienced something like that in traditional media always shied away from abusive language and vulgar language but BB did it in a way that made it feel connected it felt like he was one of us.

that video change my life I don't know which video it was, but the point is this small video made my day genuinely because at that time I was at a low point in my life, and this distracted me enough for a while to get my mind off the problems and start working again too it's my dreams and that taught me how a simple video and a simple creator with just a simple video can help you get out of a deep deep hole in which you are just spirailing into without even knowing YouTube comes in help now I know that it was not intentional of BB or anyone else or even YouTube did hell and now and the YouTube community and YouTube itself, in general, is raising awareness on such problems and this can lead to many youths who are residing and having problems just get back on the feet and realize that they are having some problem and their suffering from mental issues and this realisation is the big thing in itself because most of us don't realize that were suffering from a problem untill its too late, . The second experience was when I was watching a video that was actually an advertisement. this video was a spoof on Indian beauty product industry which is more focused on fair skin, This was a video from The screen Patti I think , then I watched some Cringe worthy videos from some idiots, then I found a Gem , it was Markiplier and it was his Minecraft video , and at that time my 1 GB internet was over when I started the assassins creed trailer,

My experience of watching the God of War Kratos jumping off a cliff video

The video I watched was of the God of War Kratos jumping off a cliff. I watched it, and I enjoyed it. , but I’ve never played any of the games in the franchise because I was not that interested in the game but when I discovered the true potential of the series, now I am way too busy to game, I know I sound like a pretentious prick but its the truth I can write while on the bus but can't game is the sad part of life. i was interested in the soundtrack because it was like a godly metal fusion of sound from different eras. after watching the same 2 min video 5 times I google the name of the track and I found out its Aerosmith dream on, I listen to the song and added it to my playlist

The unexpected help message I received

this is about the unexpected help prompt I got from youtube when I opened the same song again, it read hey if you are depressed or having any kind of issues plz contact this website or something I don't remember clearly but that shook me, and I was like why would I need something like that , I am clearly not depressed am pretty okay, I mean yeah sometimes I am frustrated but who isn't , so is the song the problem and not me ,

and then I did some digging

The story behind the help message

The story behind the help message is that a teenager was listening to this track on a loop, and He was really into it, and then he unfortunately couldn’t get help, and she ended up committing suicide, this is my conjecture cause the story read BOY dead beside a cliff and he was listening to Aerosmith Dream on on a 60 min loop

Youtube is helping people with mental illnesses by suggesting helpline numbers when people seem to be especially lonely or sad. It works because people who feel alone and depressed are most likely to seek out the company and because people who call helplines probably feel lonely and depressed as well. This could also be a good way to help people who don’t feel like they need professional help, but who wants someone to talk to. If they know helplines are available, they might feel less lonely and depressed.

How Youtube is using its algorithm to help people

Youtube is using its algorithm to help people by watching the comments and tags on videos, it generates a full review of a video, and from that, it generates what kind of audience is watching the video, and from that, it figures out what kind of audience might be interested in watching the video, and then from that, it runs an algorithm to find people who might be interested in watching the video and shows them the video, thereby helping the people who might need help but don’t know that helplines exist. This means that when you watch a video, the app figures out who you are, and what videos you might be interested in, and then searches for other people who might be interested in the same videos. It then shows them the videos you are watching, and you might get suggestions to watch new videos.

normally all this only creates an echo chamber of your own thoughts but youtube has realized this and now are taking measures by sending messages to people

Conclusion

In this I want to mention that I am not in any way saying that The Track Dream is responsible for the incident, I have only mentioned it here cause it was my exposure to the incident and I loved it,

the Main conclusion I have reached is that this type of behavior from YOutube shows 2 things, first is incidents of people getting so influenced by social media that they end up in a dark place and sometimes do the unthinkable, other is big players like youtube are aware of the problem and are trying to combat it in their own way!