The Dart Center for Journalism & Trauma: Crisis Reporting in the Age of Social Media

Anna Codrea-Rado quotes Emotion Technology's Christopher Gandin Le in her article about the interplay between social media and the high-stakes business of trauma reporting.

Christopher Gandin Le from Emotion Technology, a suicide prevention organization, believes it's important to hold off on information until it's verified for slightly different reasons. "Knowing the method of death and other details can always have the potential for a contagion effect," Le said.

A specialist in online outreach programs for trauma-informed care, Le believes the biggest harm a reporter can do is not in the immediate, but in the time following a trauma. "When the sand bags are gone, that's when people say, what happened to my life," Le said. It is at that point that the information about what to do, where to go and how to seek help is absolutely critical.

Read more at The Dart Center's website.

YPulse: Lifeline Gallery a Key Youth Resource

YPulse, the leading authority on youth and marketing to teens, tweens, and Generation Y, listed the Lifeline Gallery as a key online resource dedicated to helping youth deal with issues like mental health, sexual health, and physical fitness/nutrition.

Lifeline Gallery – Another innovative approach to providing virtual space for discussions around experiences with suicide, Christopher Gandin Le, CEO and Co-founder of Emotion Technology, co-created the Lifeline Gallery with Jessica Haas. Visitors are invited to create an avatar, and then link that avatar to their voice or text story about struggling with losing someone to suicide, or recovering after their own suicide attempt.

KXAN: Austin company prevents suicide online

NBC affiliate KXAN ran a story on March 15th about Emotion Technology's SXSW Interactive panel titled "RT: I'm Going To Kill Myself. Preventing Suicide Online."

Watch the video below!

News 8 Austin: SXSW panel targets suicide and prevention

News 8 Austin covered Emotion Technology's SXSW Interactive panel, highlighting the scope of the problem and the importance of bringing help to young users online.

Austin Chronicle: Future Perfect - Contemplating the Digital Afterlife

Wells Dunbar spotlighted Emotion Technology's SXSW panel "RT: I'm Going to Kill Myself" in his March 5th trend piece for the Austin Chronicle on some SXSW 2010 panels about technology, death, and saving lives.

Right now, Gandin Le concedes, ways to help are pretty limited. "That's what we're working on, is to make sure that on Facebook or on Twitter those policies are in place, so if users report there's a problem, we are able to save lives." This could take the form of alerting local authorities, or "online crisis counseling, where users will be able to click on a link and get help immediately." If there's one thing people like Gandin Le and digital afterlife planners have in common, it's working on a standardization of responses from social network companies so the response process will be streamlined when threats are made –potentially saving lives in the process. "One thing I hear a lot," Gandin Le says of suicidal posts, "is, 'Oh, this person's just making a cry for help.' Well yeah, exactly, so let's get them help!"