Teens, young adults are texting for help during crisis
Gene Myers- The Text Crisis Line was created former CEO of DoSomething.org, Nancy Lublin.
- The service has received about $14 million in funds through donations.
- Backers include Melinda Gates, Steve Ballmer, Pierre Omidyar and Reid Hoffman.
It's private, anonymous and judgment-free.
It's also unorthodox.
But using text messages to seek help during an emotional crisis is a growing trend, especially among teens and young adults, who may feel more comfortable texting than talking.
The non-profit and free Crisis Text Line, founded in 2013, is staffed by almost 4,000 trained volunteer counselors and tends to attract younger users, who, in general, prefer to communicate by text. According to data gathered by the nationwide crisis line, 75 percent of its users are younger than 25, with the majority between 14 and 17 years old.
Megan Schulze, a, 30-year-old employee and counselor for Crisis Text Line, said young adults see benefits to texting that a phone call doesn't provide.
“Texts can be done privately, whether you are sitting in the class or in the lunchroom," she said. "It is a medium that we are a lot more comfortable with. In general, it’s easier to put something down in writing than it is to say it out loud.”
So far, almost 56 million text messages have been exchanged between counselors and those in crisis, said the director of communications, Liz Eddy. About 40,000 of those texts have come from New Jersey residents.
How to help:Spotting signs of depression, suicide in young adults
Millburn:Family addresses depression after 14-year-old daughter's death
Suicide is the third leading cause of death for Americans between the ages of 10 and 24, a group that prefers to communicate through texting and has not known a time without cellphones. On average, a teen or young adult will send about 2,000 texts per month.
Crisis counselor Maura Mahoney, a 23-year-old from Haddon Township, said sending a text is more private and more convenient.
Story continues below graphic
Someone could be bullied at school, she said, and "run to the bathroom and text so that nobody can hear them, as opposed to calling a hotline or something like that."
Millennials are very comfortable on their phones and like that the texting hotline is anonymous.
"They can also control what they say and what you know about them," Mahoney said. "You don’t see them and you can’t judge them.”
How it works
Texting a word of choice, such as 'hello' or 'help,' to 741741 connects the texter with a trained counselor within five minutes, possibly longer during high-traffic times.
Counselors will ask questions, empathize and actively listen until both parties feel comfortable and the texter is in a "cool, safe place." Usually, conversations will last 15 to 45 minutes. "Hot" and "cool" describe the crisis levels of a texter.
Mahoney said that once she made the decision to volunteer as a counselor, she filled out an online application and submitted to a background check, and after six weeks of online training she was ready to go.
“It was nerve-wracking to get on the text line two days a week when I first started,” she said. “You feel obligated to help this person you don’t know. You can’t go over and give them a hug, and you don’t know what happens when they finish the conversation.”
With at least 100 conversations behind her, Mahoney said suicide came up in about 25 percent of them. In that situation, she said, she flags a supervisor and sends first responders to the texter.
“The one that I reflect upon most was a texter in imminent risk. It was very early on in my Crisis Text Line career,” she said. “They were suicidal and they were ready. I had to flag the supervisor and wait for them to call the authorities. That waiting period was hard.”
She said she learned a lot in that conversation, because she “had to keep talking to this texter knowing that as soon as they stopped texting they wanted to complete the suicide.”
Every minute and every text counts, she said.
Some texters reach out to express anxiety, stress, or family or social issues. During last year's presidential election, the crisis text line experienced volume eight times higher than normal.
Texting vs. talking
While texting offers some benefits, some say that speaking with a person in crisis is the preferred method of counseling, said Maria Vinci Savettiere, executive director of Deirdre’s House, a child advocacy center specializing in clinical counseling for children.
“Having someone on the line is a useful tool for us, because we can assess their tone, the inflection, and we can determine a level of stress,” she said. “We can also hear noises in the background, so it is helpful to talk to someone.
"That being said, we find that teens and adolescents are sometimes more comfortable texting than they are speaking," she said. "So if it’s going to be a difference between reaching out or not, then the text method should be used.”
While hotlines have helped people in crisis for decades, communication methods have evolved to meet changing needs.
"That is how they communicate," Savettiere said. "Sometimes they don’t have the tools or the confidence to speak to somebody directly on the phone. In that case I would wholeheartedly endorse this texting hotline.”
Compiling data
Crisis Text Line was built around technology, making data collection easy. The service boasts a large real-time data set.
The data, according to Crisis Text Line, will be used to improve its services by empowering crisis counselors with information, as well as aiding crisis response in general.
So far, data have been used to create a "texter triage."
Using an algorithm, texts are assessed to determine a texter’s suicidal risk based on their first few messages, according to the service. Texters at high risk get a “code orange” and move to the top of the list for priority response.
Depression, suicidal thoughts and anxiety may dominate, but Mahoney said she has also received texts expressing issues with parents, sexual assault and homelessness.
“We really don’t like to define it, because a crisis can mean something different to each person,” Mahoney said.
Regardless of the issues, Shulze said it's important that the texters in crisis are reaching out.
“There is no shame in reaching out. If it is a crisis to you, it is a crisis to us. We are going to meet you in the place you’re at and walk you to a better place."
The data
An interactive map on the Crisis Text Line uses data collected from each text and ranks states from 1 to 50 in 18 categories ranging from suicidal thoughts to depression, LGBTQ issues, stress, family issues and more.
For instance, the Northeast ranks high on the list when it comes to anxiety. New Hampshire is ranked No. 1, New Jersey is fourth, and at the bottom of the list is Mississippi.
Depression, on the other hand, is evenly distributed throughout the country, with the top spot going to Vermont and the bottom to Hawaii. New Jersey is ranked 29th in depression.
Suicidal thoughts rank highest in the Northwest and generally lowest in the Southern states. New Jersey ranks the lowest. Substance abuse mirrors suicidal thoughts data.
The data also pinpoint the time of day, week, month or year when some issues are more prevalent. Anxiety is expressed more frequently on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, with 9 a.m. being the hour with the most anxiety and 10 p.m. the hour with the least.
In New Jersey, 96 percent of texters expressed stress, 35 percent said they were depressed and 23 percent reported family issues.
Breaking it down further, the top three concerns from texters who said they were from Passaic and Bergen counties were depression, family issues and relationship issues. The highest volume from Passaic and Bergen texters was reported on Sundays and Wednesdays from 8 p.m. to midnight.
History and funding
Created by a former CEO of DoSomething.org, Nancy Lublin, the service has received about $14 million in funds through donations. Backers include Melinda Gates, Steve Ballmer, Pierre Omidyar and Reid Hoffman.