EXPERTS are looking into the possible link between social media and the increasing number of young people who are becoming depressed, an official said Friday.
Health department spokesman Eric Tayag said global studies showed an 18-percent increase in the number of depressed young people in 2015, when 322 million were listed as depressed compared with only 280 million in 2005.
In a press briefing to commemorate World Health Day, which this year focuses on depression, Tayag said experts were checking the contribution of bashing in social media to depression.
The Health department says the biggest threat posed by depression is suicide, which is the second leading cause of death among people aged 15 to 29. “Some people have difficulty coping with such bashing, and that is why we want to protect them”•especially our adolescents who are very vulnerable,” Tayag said.
Tayag said experts were now doing research on depression and that the department was waiting for the results.
He said his department was also monitoring the calls to Hopeline numbers 0917558HOPE or 0917-558-4673. The department launched the hotline with Globe Telecom and the Natasha Goulbourn Foundation last year to reach out to people suffering from depression and to encourage them to talk to someone willing to listen.
Based on the latest data, Hopeline received 3,479 calls from January to December last year, and of those 902 calls were made by teenagers and 1,902 were made by young adults aged 20 to 39 years old. Some 60 of them called because they were depressed, 496 wanted information on depression and suicide, 479 were stressed out and possibly depressed, 111 were possibly suicidal, 31 were being bullied and 14 had low self-esteem. With Macon Ramos-Araneta
