[ti:School Shooting Survivor Develops Mental Wellness App]
[al:As It Is]
[ar:VOA]
[dt:2023-09-29]
[by:www.voase.cn]
[00:00.00]Kai Koerber was a student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida when a gunman murdered 14 students and three school workers there in February 2018.
[00:14.09]Seeing other students and himself struggle to return to normal, Koerber wanted to do something to help people deal with their emotions.
[00:25.87]Some of his classmates from the school have advocated for gun control policies or entered politics. 
[00:34.13]Some took time to heal and work on their studies. Koerber's background in technology led him in a different direction: to build a smartphone app.
[00:47.41]The result was Joy: AI Wellness Platform. 
[00:52.29]It uses artificial intelligence to suggest small mindfulness activities for people based on how they are feeling.
[01:01.60]The algorithm is designed to recognize how a person feels from the sound of their voice.
[01:09.19]It does not matter the words or language they speak.
[01:15.44]Like many of his fellow students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas, Koerber said he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder for a "very long time." 
[01:27.13]Only recently has it eased a little.
[01:30.96]Koerber started a research team at the University of California at Berkeley to build an AI tool to see if his idea was possible.
[01:44.32]The idea was a platform that provides those struggling with a "wellness practice on the go that meets our emotional needs on the go."
[01:55.43]He said it was important to offer quick activities. 
[01:59.83]Sometimes the activities last just a few seconds and can be done anywhere the user might be.
[02:08.19]Mohammed Zareef-Mustafa is a former classmate of Koerber's.
[02:14.26]He has been using the app for a few months.
[02:17.64]"I use the app about three times a week, because the practices are short and easy to get into," Zareef-Mustafa said.
[02:27.49]"It really helps me quickly de-stress before I have to do things like job interviews."
[02:35.56]To use Joy, the user simply speaks into the app over a phone or computer. 
[02:42.29]The AI is supposed to recognize how you are feeling from your voice, then suggest short activities.
[02:50.27]If the user is feeling "neutral," the app suggests several activities, like a 15-second exercise called "mindful consumption."
[03:01.67]It gets you to "think about all the lives and beings involved in producing what you eat or use that day."
[03:10.58]Another activity calls for practicing how to make an effective apology.
[03:16.63]Another asks users write a letter to their future self. 
[03:20.81]One suggestion asks sad users to track how many times they have laughed over a seven-day period.
[03:28.65]The user is supposed to count the laughs up at the end of the week to see what moments made them happy.
[03:37.79]The iPhone app costs $8 a month. 
[03:41.94]It is a work in progress. 
[03:44.21]And like other AI tools, the more people use it, the better it becomes.
[03:51.18]Many wellness apps on the market claim to help people with mental health issues, but it is not always clear whether they work, said Colin Walsh.
[04:02.11]He is a professor of biomedical informatics at Vanderbilt University and has studied the use of AI in suicide prevention.
[04:13.74]The stakes also matter. Facebook, for instance, has faced some criticism in the past for its suicide prevention tool. 
[04:23.58]It used AI as well as humans to identify users who may be considering suicide.
[04:30.98]If the technology is simply directing someone to spend some time outside, and the stakes are lower, it is unlikely to cause harm, Walsh said.
[04:43.71]Koerber said people often forget, after mass shootings, that survivors do not "bounce back right away" from the experience.
[04:54.05]It takes years to recover, he said.
[04:56.99]His work has also been slower and more thoughtful than tech business leaders of the past, he added.
[05:04.54]"I guess young Mark Zuckerberg was very 'move fast and break things,'" Koerber said. 
[05:12.07]"And for me, I'm all about building quality products that ... serve social good in the end."
[05:18.94]I'm Dan Novak.