Opening Insights
A Engadet UK article written by Joh Fingas, dated August 23, 2017, highlights that "Google is offering a verified test that could lead to treatment." This reality should cause the hair on the back of everyone's neck to stand up!
Informational Insights
Only half of Americans who face depression get help for it, and Google is determined to increase that percentage. As of today, it's offering a medically validated, anonymous screening questionnaire for clinical depression if you search for information on the condition. This won't definitively indicate that you're clinically depressed, to be clear, but it will give you useful information you can take to a doctor. And importantly, the very presence of the questionnaire promises to raise awareness and promote treatment beyond what a basic information card would offer.
The questionnaire is part of a larger effort from internet giants to provide helpful and potentially life-saving information to people with mental health issues. Facebook is testing AI that can detect suicidal comments and make it easier to get help, while its Instagram service recently started offering support to users when their friends report concerning posts.
In many cases, they're concerned both about offering a helping hand as well as making sure that you get accurate information. Google and others are determined to fight fake news, and they know that the consequences of false or incomplete medical information could be serious. If you need help, they want to be sure you get the appropriate support.
Source: https://www.engadget.com/2017/08/23/google-offers-clinical-depression-questionnaire-in-search/
Possibilities for Consideration
- Is Google positioning to not only control information and consumer behavior, but control our lives, thoughts and behaviors?
- Can a computer test really dictate our state of mind, and direct our behavior and need?
- Are we, as a society, willing to hand over our free will to an algorithm?
Add Your Insight
Each of us is an ongoing product of the world within us,
the world between us, and the world around us—and their hidden capacity to shape our every thought, feeling, and behavior.
ADAM ALTER