Kurtis Bell

One of the best features of the modern connected age is the how fast information travels between people. One of the worst features of the modern connected age is the how fast information travels between people. We can watch or join in with events in almost real time happening hundreds of miles away from us, like sports, tech announcements or a Zoom call with friends. But sometimes the news that spreads is not something we’re expecting to hear.

I have experienced discovering through social media that I had lost a friend who died by suicide, by way of a memorial post put up by a mutual friend. That day started as any other, but by the time the afternoon rolled round, the various social network connections between people meant that the news had spread fast.

Caroline King is the head of Northern Ireland for PAPYRUS Prevention of Young Suicide, a suicide prevention charity that focuses on young suicides, and has worked in the field of suicide prevention for the past fifteen years. She said: "Everyone is navigating social media networks, in that they want to use them, and they see the benefits of them, but they’re also very cautious about how quickly algorithms behind the scenes can drive people down a rabbit hole where they find it very hard to come out of."

This past year however has presented opportunities for all of us to use video calling and other messaging services to keep in touch in a reasonably good way. PAPYRUS have even managed to train three new volunteers, all in the work from home setup we’ve become accustomed to. "Our platforms are very busy. Lots of young people, parents and professionals look to our platforms, and our website has a lot of footfall." Despite the downsides of the current tech orientated world, it still offers a great way to keep in touch with our friends and family.

As well as sharing all of our information, we also use our devices to remember our experiences. In the pandemic, we’ve another example of memories that we might not want to be reminded of. My photos app often suggests pictures to me that I took on this day a year ago, and as March blended into April 2021, it was filled with the snaps I took as the world changed around us at the start of the coronavirus restrictions in the UK. I can look back now at the picture that I took at Tesco of the huge pallets, stacked high with toilet roll and chuckle a little, but for a lot of people the memories that will be resurfaced won’t always be happy ones.

As we experience loss and have more years of our life documented by our devices, bad memories being suggested to us will only increase. "We do know that those memory posts that come up can trigger trauma for people, they can trigger a lot of sadness, they can even trigger for some people suicidal thoughts," said King about memory posts, particularly those on social media. It’s a really difficult problem for the algorithms that choose what pictures are displayed; what’s the emotional resonance that this picture will have with the end user?

The human memory is much more fallible than most of us would want to admit, especially in exam season. Our memories also fade over time as we grow, have new experiences and there’s no more room in our brains for the older stuff. That’s a natural part of the human experience, whether we want it to be or not. However, when we want to remember the people we’ve lost, the ability to catalogue everything we do with the cameras in our phones means that we have far more photos of our friends and family than any generation in human history. And when the time is right and you’re in the right headspace to remember, those pictures will be waiting for you when to choose to look at them. As King so rightly put it, it’s always about remembering how the person lived.

If you have been affected by any of the issues in this article, are experiencing signs of distress or are concerned for someone else’s wellbeing, you can get in touch with someone at one of the services free of charge below:

PAPYRUS HOPELINEUK

Phone: 0800 068 4141
Text: 07860039967

Lifeline Helpline

Phone: 0808 808 8000

Samaritans

Phone: 116 123

More details about PAPYRUS and links to access their resource are available on www.papyrus-uk.org

Kurtis Bell is an Aerospace Engineering Student at Queen’s University Belfast

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