Technology has taken over the world to the extent that even depression can even be managed by chatbots now.
Ever since the pandemic, the depression ratio has sky-rocketed. The pandemic brought about financial issues, emotional crises, and self-doubting which led to severe waves of depression globally. To overcome this ratio, developers increased the number of mental health apps available so that people could quietly seek help.
Now, do these apps work? We mean, everyone does claim that your mental health is going to improve but how can that happen when you’re simply talking to an automated conversational robot? A team of scientists from Nanyang Technological University conducted a test to find out.
It included the assessment of 9 different chatbots. The assessments weren’t conducted on real people, but on nine different artificial personas, each of different ages, gender, and culture.
The criteria for selecting these 9 chatbots were their popularity rates. All 9 of them had over a million downloads. After assessing them, the team concluded that all of these were operational models that did help people with depression.
The chatbots couldn’t deliver personalized advice, or that could breach the anonymity of the person, but the overall conversation was helpful. While these chatbots cannot help people overcome depression, they do help people by being encouraging, nurturing, and motivating. They’re meant to be a source for people to vent.
Apps that cater to these chatbots do not mean to undermine the value of real health professionals but only aim to provide timely care. Often patients feel more at ease talking to a machine than an actual human.
Due to the scientists at NTU, we now know that chatbots with scripted conversions are also of great help to people with depression.
Illustration: pch-vector/freepik
Read next: Many Sectors Fell Victim to Data Breaching in 2022 And the Finance and Insurance Sector Was At the Top of the List
Ever since the pandemic, the depression ratio has sky-rocketed. The pandemic brought about financial issues, emotional crises, and self-doubting which led to severe waves of depression globally. To overcome this ratio, developers increased the number of mental health apps available so that people could quietly seek help.
Now, do these apps work? We mean, everyone does claim that your mental health is going to improve but how can that happen when you’re simply talking to an automated conversational robot? A team of scientists from Nanyang Technological University conducted a test to find out.
It included the assessment of 9 different chatbots. The assessments weren’t conducted on real people, but on nine different artificial personas, each of different ages, gender, and culture.
The criteria for selecting these 9 chatbots were their popularity rates. All 9 of them had over a million downloads. After assessing them, the team concluded that all of these were operational models that did help people with depression.
The chatbots couldn’t deliver personalized advice, or that could breach the anonymity of the person, but the overall conversation was helpful. While these chatbots cannot help people overcome depression, they do help people by being encouraging, nurturing, and motivating. They’re meant to be a source for people to vent.
Apps that cater to these chatbots do not mean to undermine the value of real health professionals but only aim to provide timely care. Often patients feel more at ease talking to a machine than an actual human.
Due to the scientists at NTU, we now know that chatbots with scripted conversions are also of great help to people with depression.
Read next: Many Sectors Fell Victim to Data Breaching in 2022 And the Finance and Insurance Sector Was At the Top of the List
