Sunday, 19 December 2010
Pilots of the future: suicide prevention and the internet
Samaritans founder Chad Varah was that most British of things: an old-fashioned gentleman with a pronounced enthusiasm for the modern world. Besides his work in suicide prevention, he promoted progressive attitudes towards sex education in Picture Post, and was the astronautical consultant to Dan Dare, the “Pilot of the Future” whose exploits thrilled the readers of the Eagle. So it is fair to say he would have approved of the latest innovation by Samaritans: a box with the organisation's helpline number (08457 90 90 90) that appears at the top of the page in response to searches for terms relating to suicide on Google UK.
It has been there since November 2010: a small change, but a significant one. This is not by any means the organisation's first foray into cyberspace—that came as far back as 1992 with the piloting of the jo@samaritans.org email address—but it represents an important advance in the way Samaritans engages with the public, and an indication that it is keen to address the challenges posed by a future spent more and more online.
The first of these challenges will be to bring some sense of rationality and proportion to the ongoing discussion about the role of the internet. Although the perception of the online environment as something novel is wearing off for adults—and is probably a source of complete bafflement to teenagers—its involvement, however tenuous, in any episode of self-harm, suicide, illness, or violence guarantees intense media interest. And behind these stories lurks the assumption—made in the absence of any solid evidence—that the use of the internet, and specifically social networking sites, is intrinsically damaging. In 2009, for example, the UK Sunday Telegraph ran an interview with the Archbishop of Westminster Vincent Nichols: it was reported that the Archbishop “warned that the sites are contributing to a trend for teenagers to put too much importance on the number of friends they have and that this can ultimately lead to suicide...”
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Niall Boyce @'The Lancet'
The WIRE Records of the Year 2010
01 Actress - Splazsh
02 Oneohtrix Point Never - Returnal
03 Swans - My father will guide me up a rope to the sky
04 Joanna Newsom - Have one on me
05 Catherine Christer Hennix - The electric harpsichord
06 Rangers - Suburban tours
07 Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Before today
08 John Tilbury & Sebastian Lexer - Last daylight
09 Keith Fullerton Whitman - Disengenuity/Disengenuousness
10 Kevin Drumm - Necro acoustic
11 Sun City Girls - Funeral mariachi
12 Annette Krebs & Taku Unami - Motobachii
13 Sun Araw - On patrol
14 Gonjasufi - A sufi and a killer
15 Big Boi - Sir Lucious Left Foot
16 Joe Colley - Disasters of self
17 Richard Skelton - Landings
18 Emeralds - Does it look like I'm here?
19 Eleh - Location momentum
20 Autechre - Oversteps
21 Helena Gough - Mikroklimata
22 Demdike Stare - Liberation through hearing
23 Marina Rosenfeld - Plastic materials
24 Bill Orcutt - Way down south
25 Flying Lotus - Cosmogramma
26 Bellows - Handcut
27 Tilbury/Duch/Davies - Conrenius Cardew: Works 1960-1970
28 Hype Williams - s/t
29 Laurie Anderson - Homeland
30 Konono No 1 - Assume crash position
31 Zs - New slaves
32 Phew - Five finger discount
33 Sabbathh Assembly - Restored to one
34 Derek Bailey - More 74
35 Seijaku - Mail from Fushitsua
36 Tyler the Creator - Bastard
37 Moon Wiring Club A spare tabby at the cat's wedding
38 Larry Polansky - The world's largest melody
39 Alasdair Galbraith - Mass
40 Jailbreak - The Rocker
41 oOoOO - oOoOO
42 Pedestrian Deposit - East fork/North fork
43 Group Inerane - Guitars from Agadaz vol 3
44 Prins Thomas - s/t
45 These New Puritans - Hidden
46 Aldo Clementi - Works with flutes
47 Graham Lambkin & Jason Lescalleet - Air supply
48 Joseph Hammer - I love you, please love me too
49 Joshua Abrams - Natural information
50 Grinderman 2
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