Today marks World Suicide Prevention Day, a day we can all use to reflect on our sadly high suicide rate. Social media is a majorly rampant driving force behind many of our mental health issues today, although it’s not the only factor, cyberbullying, poverty, unemployment, crowded housing and despair all can be drivers of poor mental health, Dr David Codyre, Lead Psychiatrist at 1737, need to talk? gave an insight into some of the things that may be behind our mental health issues.

What social media does in relation to mental health is amplify the capacity of human interaction to be powerful for good and bad. We tend to struggle saying rude things to people face to face as most of us would feel bad being rude to another person’s face. Yet on social media there is this wall of the electronic world in-between, people can say what they like, character assassinate someone, yet not have to witness the harm of what has been said. Many who would not in their wildest imaginations consider themselves to be bullies face to face are bullies on social media because they don’t have to see the impact of it, says Dr David Codyre.

People may say rude things on social media they would never say in person, its one way traffic, that’s the bad side. Much like like warfare, in the old days in order to inflict harm on another person you had to stand facing them. Now with modern warfare the push of a button can cause a great deal of collateral damage from a far. Its de-humanised and means people are removed from seeing the hurt felt by another person.

We haven’t become meaner, the good comes from the collectivism of the online community, where complete strangers offer support, empathy and hope to people they have never meet. It’s something truly powerful to witness.

Certainly not unique to New Zealand, cyberbullying is a global phenomenon. Fundamentally we can’t blame technology, it’s all about communication and about how we as human beings interact with each other.

Cyberbullying is a big issue for people all over the world, not only for young people but older people as well. Cyberbullying is incredibly harmful, we’ve all seen suicides that resulted from text, Facebook or other kinds of what gets called cyberbullying.

What we have to encourage is people being collectively responsible online, we need to help ourselves as communities of people to learn the rules of living in this new world, just as we had rules around how we lived in the old pre-technology world. We should think about how we maintain a set of understandings around what is and isn’t good behaviour in this new world.

Bullying as we know from research has a huge impact on the risk of depression in young people particularly. Generating open conversations around how we behave in this new kind of social media environment is important, we should respond to nastiness on social media in the same way that we would respond in real life, standing up for one another.

Multiple factors could be driving our high suicide rate, we are a nation that has seen a big shift in divide between rich and poor. One of the biggest drivers of poor mental health and suicide risk are things like; poverty, unemployment, crowded housing and despair.

Over the last hundred years the rate of stress, depression and anxiety problems have grown decade-by-decade. Communicable diseases are still the leading cause of deaths in the developing world, yet in the developed world sometime in the next few years depression is going to become the leading cause of disability related to health issues, overtaking cardiovascular disease which is currently the leading cause.

We still have this culture in New Zealand that we have to be tough, that to admit we are struggling is a sign of weakness. The newly released suicide figures are deeply saddening, far too many people unfortunately still don’t ask for help when they desperately need it, and it literally kills them. The more people know there is help out there, via text or phone, the more we can change this.

If you’re worried about yourself or someone in your life, take that moment to ask if they’re okay. 1737, need to talk? is 24/7 helpline free to text or call available to anyone in New Zealand.