Israelis startup CoBe Labs has created an artificial intelligence-based application to help teens struggling with mental health.
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ChatBot uses teenagers' day-to-day language and fuses it with proven diagnosis and treatment protocols and utilizes cognitive processes used by psychotherapists to collect and analyze data and fuse it with treatment protocols.
ChatBot creates a personalized, authentic conversation and is there to listen, encourage and suggest ways to cope with anxiety and life's stress.
Talking to users via smartphones, ChatBot can immediately help an unlimited number of teenagers, an apparent solution to the growing waitlists to see psychologists. More than one in eight teenagers struggle with their mental health, and roughly 46,000 adolescents commit suicide each year, a global figure that alarmed the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in their annual report.
Speaking with i24NEWS, Dr. Claudia Lang, a senior psychologist and clinical expert who for 10 years led a department dedicated to children and teens, eluded to the rise in the use of social media as the main cause.
"Bullying is something that has been increasing because of social media," Dr. Lang said.
"[Teens] can hurt each other in ways that really hurt their self-esteem and development, and it leads to anxiety, depression, even suicide."
In the case of suicidal thoughts, ChatBot sends an alert to a support unit that immediately gets in touch with the user.
With the aid of Dr. Lang, the Israeli startup CoBe Labs created an easy and accessible outlet for teens in distress – ChatBot, developed by the founders Meir Rafael and Haddas Herzog Manor.
Manor, CEO, and co-founder of CoBe Labs, said, "It's a continuous engagement platform. It learns about you and creates some sort of universe of who you are and what your hobbies are, as well as your current mental state."
Already operating in the United States, CoBe Labs is sparking interest from health organizations and web giants who realize the opportunity to create safer, more positive environments.
i24NEWS contributed to this report.
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