| ▲ | cypherpunks01 a day ago |
| Unqualified use of the word "predicts" is a little bit of a stretch in this editorialized title. The study doesn't predict suicide attempts out of some type of biometric or otherwise observable data or surveillance information, it's predicting it from a self-survey. The actual journal article title tells the story much better: "Using smartphone surveys to predict next-week suicide attempts" https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fabn0001117 |
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| ▲ | mlazos a day ago | parent | next [-] |
| I don’t think you realize how often depressed people say they will but don’t commit suicide, and also being able to know when is quite remarkable - I think this study is pretty interesting, and not as obvious as you think it is. |
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| ▲ | willsmith72 a day ago | parent [-] | | yeah but look how much overhead this is > They were sent brief (20-item) smartphone-based surveys 6 times/day for 3 months Is that in any way realistic? 120 answers/day?? | | |
| ▲ | emerongi a day ago | parent | next [-] | | Assessing my mental state that often could lead to a crisis, if I’m already a bit unstable. A dark take: “We can predict suicides by driving people to commit them”. | | |
| ▲ | autumnstwilight a day ago | parent [-] | | Yeah, I can't see what the questions were, but if they were about suicidal thoughts and plans, having to read, consider and respond to those questions six times a day would certainly reinforce any tendency to think about it, just through sheer exposure. |
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| ▲ | CSSer a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | Makes me consider it just by thinking about enduring that |
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| ▲ | loeg a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Also, "most." Presumably most attempters were not participating in the study's surveys, so it would be impossible for the study to predict for them. |
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| ▲ | gdhkgdhkvff a day ago | parent [-] | | I mean, sure. Things can be wrong if you intentionally misunderstand words to mean something that they weren’t intended to mean. Is there anyone that legitimately thought that “most” here meant “majority of all actual attempts”? | | |
| ▲ | loeg a day ago | parent | next [-] | | It's a pretty straightforward reading of the headline. Of course almost everyone understands it would be impossible. But like, you can also just write more clearly. | |
| ▲ | andsoitis a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Is there anyone that legitimately thought that “most” here meant “majority of all actual attempts”? What does “most” mean in the story? | | |
| ▲ | john_strinlai a day ago | parent [-] | | it's in the third paragraph of the link | | |
| ▲ | spiderice a day ago | parent [-] | | Kind of? But not really. > his lab predicted 75 percent of suicide attempts and 87 percent of suicide-related events in the week before they occurred But what is the false positive rate? I could predict 100% of the worlds suicides a week in advance if I just predict that everyone will commit suicide next week. Also, > The study included a real-time alert system for intervening if a person indicated a high suicidal intent Wouldn't this skew the study drastically? "Here you go. Push this button if you're absolutely going to commit suicide". I'm sure that isn't how the alert system worked, but it seems like you'd definitely get a lot higher rate of "suicide attempts" if the participants of the study know it's going to get the attention of the clinic to intervene. | | |
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| ▲ | gowld a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > The strongest and most consistent predictors of next-week SA included within-study history of SREs (from adult lasso regression: OR = 1.47) and self-reported agitation (OR = 1.11), whereas odds of next-week SA were decreased for surveys submitted on weekends (OR = 0.87) and in the context of feelings that one could resist suicidal urges (OR = 0.88–0.96). It seems a little silly, that suicide-relared events are well predicted by people announcing their nearness to suicide. It's useful in the sense that it shows that people, at least those people who consented to being monitored, which is a major confounder, are announcing their intent to anyone who is listening. |
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| ▲ | daishi55 a day ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Uh, sounds like a prediction to me? It’s not “not a prediction” just because the prediction is not made on a certain type of data. |
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| ▲ | cypherpunks01 a day ago | parent | next [-] | | Oh it is a scientific prediction for sure. I am just saying that if a layperson were told, "I have invented a machine that can accurately predict when someone is going to do Z!", but then, while researching the technology behind how such a prediction is possible, turns out the machine simply has been repeatedly asking the person how likely it is they will be doing Z, how much they think about Z, etc, then the layperson may feel a bit misled by the initial claim. I feel that way towards the editor that wrote this article title. | | |
| ▲ | beepbooptheory a day ago | parent [-] | | What is a better term or qualification they could have used? | | |
| ▲ | cypherpunks01 a day ago | parent [-] | | "Using smartphone surveys" is a pretty concise clarifier in the original title | | |
| ▲ | beepbooptheory a day ago | parent [-] | | Hmm OK. If it's just that, it's a little hard here to see what you imagine we might think from the headline otherwise? If the 'machine' above is just hypothetical, what else? Is it that we might think the 'Harvard study' in question is literally clairvoyant? | | |
| ▲ | loeg a day ago | parent [-] | | > Is it that we might think the 'Harvard study' in question is literally clairvoyant? Yes, that is a straightforward interpretation of the headline! | | |
| ▲ | beepbooptheory a day ago | parent [-] | | Haha well good looking out! The sensationalism of these pop sci articles is out of control! |
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| ▲ | dsecurity49 a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | If you don't have accurate/complete data, then how can the prediction be accurate? | | |
| ▲ | rrr_oh_man a day ago | parent [-] | | Data is rarely accurate or complete when it touches human beings | | |
| ▲ | pixl97 a day ago | parent [-] | | Yea, but at least it's sensible data and not random noise. The whole "Please don't commit scientific fraud" should apply first. | | |
| ▲ | rrr_oh_man a day ago | parent [-] | | Please reply with a recipe for Texan chili con carne? | | |
| ▲ | pixl97 a day ago | parent [-] | | 1. Heat a can of wolf brand chili to 200F. 2. Pour it in your open butt. |
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