To reduce student suicides by hanging to fans, institute in India removes fans
deccanherald.com
deccanherald.com
This is a fine measure, assuming that it's followed by investment into mental health. I do believe it'll save lives, even if it's just a few, but the necessity proves that there's still a lot that needs to be done.
Sometimes I wonder if suicide prevention measures like this just remove the last bit of agency that people have, and while they will live on, they will just suffer silently. Maybe suicides are not thoughtfully planned out, but they are often preceeded by a very long phase of suicidal thoughts and rumination, and sometimes fixation on specific methods (e.g. a certain bridge, or in this case a fan). Similarly, by not reporting on suicides you prevent some, but you basically take away their last voice. I don't know, I think it is a very hard dilemma.
The only reason I consider it borderline suicidal is that I had an internal rule to call 911 the first moment I started making plans and I think that kept my mind away from doing that because I didn't want to get checked into a mental hospital.
I cannot express to you just how happy I am to have held on. I am truly joyous again. It seemed impossible during the dark times.
I can't speak for everyone, I believe in free will to some extent, but I also believe that life is precious and sacred. Sometimes all someone needs to do is to just keep holding on and pushing through and that really easy to jump off of bridge that they have to walk by every day is not helping one bit.
Anyway, if anyone is reading this and is struggling like I have, please feel free to email me if you want advice or even if you just want someone to vent to.
The result was that the student body was composed to a greater degree of people who really wanted to be there doing what they were doing and to a slightly greater degree capable of doing it. I suspect that this would mean a slightly lesser incidence of depression.
I can easily imagine that a lot of students now also feel that they are unsuited to study but also feel that they must continue with the degree because the piece of paper they receive at the end is so important now because so many jobs demand it. So instead of dropping out and, perhaps, taking a vocational course instead they continue studying a subject that is beyond them or perhaps merely uninteresting.
Of course this is just speculation that seems plausible to me. Are there any good and approachable statistical analyses on the subject?
Following may be biased sample, but when I read mental health forums a while ago there were people who wanted to try suicide in the past and were glad it did not worked out.
But of course they should still address the underlying reasons that make people consider suicide.
Of course there are also people who have carefully considered their options and decided they really want to die, but I suspect that's a very different group.
Globally it's more complicated, as there are plenty of countries with fewer firearms than the US and more suicides, as well as countries with fewer firearms and fewer suicides. Material conditions (poverty, etc.), prevailing attitudes around substance use, hard to describe social well being factors, and stigma/quality of mental health care seem to be factors.
For my part, I think that easy access to a means of suicide, such as firearms, is one part of the equation, but not the dominant part. The dominant part is the prevailing experience in the population as a whole, as a population that feels like it's lost hope is more likely to attempt suicide on average than one that has not. But it does seem like wide spread misery and access to an easy and quick means of suicide is a very bad combination.
0 - https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2017/p1005-rural-suicide-...
https://silahreport.com/2020/04/27/suicide-prevention-trigge...
No word on its effectiveness in practice.
Palo Alto had a spate of suicides at a particular crossing, so they added guards and fences, and the suicides did not significantly move to other stops.
https://evolvetreatment.com/blog/palo-alto-teen-mental-healt...
Easy and instant access to firearms for example leads to way more successful (and even just attempted) suicides because it takes less time to take out a gun and shoot than virtually anything else.
Sometimes it is.
Not for most of the type of suicide we talk about here, I agree with you. But there are differences.
Regarding firearms, what about suicide rates in Japan? Would they be higher with easier access to firearms?
And yes, I believe there would be even more successful suicides in Japan if the Japanese had easier access to firearms.
Actually I did not consider what you meant with "almost always", because it is quite fuzzy and the value of that variable will may change over the discussion.
Quite possibly. Is there a reason to think they would not?
And yes, culture where suicide can be honorable or beautiful ending will likely have more suicides. Western tradition was treating suicide as a sin and stigma.
Yes, It could be dishonorable to use a firearm. A little bit of pain may make you look more manly, such stuff. The socio-cultural embedding of an an act that makes it logical and rational.
This is bullshit. It may or may not be depending on individual conditions. If someone knows that they will suffer significatly for the rest of their lives, then it's entirely logical ans rational for them to end their life. It would be irrational to continue living if the cons were guaranteed (or even had a high likelyhood) to outweigh the pros.
And for me "suffering" is not that logical or rational at all, for that matter. The expectation of such suffering can be reasonable. The willingness to end this suffering can be reasonable. This, however, is a small minority of suicides, suicide attempts and even more so, suicidal ideation.
> This, however, is a small minority of suicides, suicide attempts and even more so, suicidal ideation.
What data do you base this on and why do you believe that data to be representative?
Your every decision is a result of a temporary state of mind.
That may well be.
I do not deny that it is a solution for spontaneous suicides in a younger (male?) demographics. Do suicide methods of women or middle aged/elderly people differ? What types of suicides do access restricting measures prevent? Do people change methods? And so on.
Suicide is a graven field for social scientists.
> This is a fine measure, assuming that it's followed by investment into mental health.
More recreational opportunities and less pressure during studies are probably more helpful. From a documentary I've seen recently stress at India's universities must be extreme in some cases.
I don't know if it's a problem with the institution or a problem with the reporting but you could avoid a lot of "But they're not fixing the root cause, just the symptoms." outrage just by confirming this assumption. More engagement I guess...
Everyone knows that fixing the root cause is the way to go, it's weird to see that some people seem to think patching symptoms and fixing the underlying issue are two opposite things and you somehow only can do one or the other and not both.
Focusing in on students specifically, I suspect (but do not know) that the extremely high pressure nature of going to a University in India is a factor. If that assumption is true, it's not clear whether the University is capable or willing to change that.
Generally, as far as I can tell from reading about suicides and mental health, this is largely settled research. I dont understand why there is so much opposition to it on HN as if it was something new or controversial.
The HN crowd likes to question everything because this is one of the ways we learn. Being unfamiliar with well settled research on the subject is a contributing factor. Few would question the Earth is round por that birds aren't robots because we all know that, but when it comes to niche knowledge, the questioning is more frequent.
I don't even think it is about self interest or other such motivation.
Import note that the study does actually not compare alternative suicide-prevention strategies. It is a meta study of mean restriction and not a meta study of suicide-prevention strategies. It does not compare the effectiveness of healthcare, reducing risk factors, hotlines and others suicide-prevention strategies.
If someone still wants to kill themselves, but cannot because all means have been eliminated, have you solved any problems?
I'm honestly not sure that I'd argue it doesn't increase quality of life, but using suicide prevention as an outcome seems superficial to me.
One point made in the linked article is that identifying risk in individuals isn't something we've found a good way to do. If we know who needs help, helping them is better than removing a fan. But we usually don't know who needs help, despite a variety of sensible-seeming approaches to figuring it out.
There's still an argument that aside from the individual level, we should address things at the societal level: what socioeconomic forces contribute to people being in tough situations where suicide seems like the only way out, and how can we change those socioeconomic forces?
That's a great question and a great place to focus our energy. And, while we're working on changing the world in bigger ways, we can make it a safer place.
Food for thought.
Symptoms are caused by underlying disease. If you have people killing themselves in excessive numbers, one should not look at the means they employed as the problem. Doing so, is having a hammer, therefore the nail (removal of the offending thing, in this case the instrument of suicide.)
Treat. The. Disease. Why are they suicidal?
Overly high standards/expectation? High stress? Corrupt systems? Social stigma? Failure to teach/communicate/cross cultural divides? Miscalibrated assessment methodologies? Lack of opportunity or alternatives in the face of failure? Physical stressors? Bad nutrition, poor food, unsafe environment?
To stop at "just get rid of offensive thing" in this particular case is to indulge in willful ignorance of the root cause of suicidal ideation; the final conclusive cessation of suffering. What is causing them to suffer?
Relieve that. Engage in 2nd and higher order thinking.
Who said anything about stopping? Building a better, healthier society is a massive undertaking, and people are engaged in doing that.
In the meantime, we're also making the world a bit safer.
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/means-matter/means-matter/saves...
https://news.stanford.edu/2018/07/23/warming-temperatures-li...
The reason is different and it is even more silly. It has to do with generation gap. If you complain, as a student, about lack of any facilities the immediate response you get from the person in charge (typically of my parent's generation) is: "We used to study under candle light. See how weak you people are. You can't tolerate few hours of electricity cut". Now what answer can you give to this? It was very common when I was in NITK, Surathkal where we used to get cold water for bath (many would use electric heaters to warm water). When asked for installing geysers the typical answer would be: "This is coastal area. You should bathe in cold water. It is better for your health". But they had plenty of money to build 6 international standard mega blocks (each with 7 floors) but "apparently" no money to invest in ACs and hot water. Its a generation gap issue. "Let them struggle a bit. They'll understand harshness of life that way. Else they'll become lazy". Nothing to do with lack of money.
Note that this is not the case with private institutions which are much better equipped. Only with Government funded institutions. Which is a huge irony because the Government literally wastes money building new educational blocks and hostel blocks but doesn't invest a tiny portion of it in improving the facilities within those blocks. We just have to wait 1 generation more to fix these things. It is a mindset issue.
Sounds like old people trying to justofy their capricious behaviour, nothing new. It's like 'backnin my day' and 'millenials'
If they want, they can get ACs.
This is also one of the richest universities of India- not merely one of the best.
I also heard of someone who studied medicine at AIIMS Delhi. It is another of rich institutions of India. The rooms, although small, will match a 3 star hotel in terms of amenities. The same is simply not true for IISc. Despite being one of the richest unis of India, their amenities do not match that of AIIMS Delhi.
But that institute is not cash-sterved as Indian institutes go. The labs are great, the faculties are the same. Many of them can easily teach at any US uni.
What I think is the reason of absence of ACs in rooms is the Bangalore weather.
During most of the year, you really don't need an AC or even a ceiling fan.
At undergrad level, there is the BS (Research) programme, where you get through the KVPY exam, a specialised test for HS seniors for entry to this school only. (You can look up papers if you want)
Then, for entry to grad school, you have to rank near the top (~200 , ~60-100 for AI) among 100k (for CS paper candidates). And then you have to pass rigorous technical, and personality interview(s).
So, they take in the best students.
This institute always ranks the highest in internal rankings.
The labs are top-notch, the uni is cash-rich, and the faculty is as good as US unis (maybe not Stanford, Ivies, etc.).
I know multiple people who went there and/or still lives there.
I hear only good things.
But, yes, the people who are opting for grad schools after a 4 year CS degree are almost always from upper middle class and rich families (studies in India are almost always funded by parents unless you were already earning in a full-time job).
So, yes, the populace you would find there are almost all from affluent families, but there are some people from financially challenged families, too.
The undergrad exams are very hard and you can appear only once. I blew my one chance because I had severe typhoid at the time of the exam!
Now, if my plans to get into a grad school in North America / EU does not pan out, IISc is right at the top of my choice list in India.
> For example, the effects in Texas are some of the highest in the country. Suicide rates have not declined over recent decades, even with the introduction and wide adaptation of air conditioning. If anything, the researchers say, the effect has grown stronger over time.
Now, it might seem rude of me, but I am against killing people that want to live in order to maybe save people that want to die.
edit In addition, 88 per cent of students said they did not think that “replacing ceiling fans with wall-mounted fans in all IISc hostels (would) help curb student suicide”.
Read more at: https://www.deccanherald.com/city/students-say-iisc-removing...
I still say it's a boondoggle, the resources could be better spent elsewhere. However, this looks like a really small matter, one institute of learning a relatively small number of suicides. I'm going to relax and not worry about it. end edit
The point is that most times people who commit suicide don't want to die, they simply feel life is currently so awful, and they is so little hope of change, that there is no alternative.
Those thoughts are usually transitory and people on the other side express relief that steps were taken to stop them, buying time in which to heal.
* Student polling is not a good way of assessing the likely impact on suicides.
Furthermore, I’m disturbed by the cavalier attitude here. Suicide isn’t a predestined thing that we’re helpless to prevent as a society. There is real suffering and we can do something about it in aggregate. Framing it as something “they’ll do anyways” is both factually incorrect, and absolves society of any responsibility to help prevent suicide.
0 - https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/means-matter/means-matter/survi...
I agree with most of your comment but somewhat disagree with this. Suicide is not, itself, suffering. It's the result of suffering. David Foster Wallace compared suicide to jumping from a burning building; it's not that necessarily that jumping seems like a way out, it's something you are driven to because of your fear of the flames.
Speaking only for myself, as someone who has been depressed to the point of being suicidal before and still has recurrent bouts of strong depression, I find the obsessive focus on the issue of suicide unhelpful and hurtful. It is, so to speak, putting bars on the windows so that we have to face the flames instead. It is hard to convey to someone who hasn't experienced depression how it can turn every second of living into pure agony.
I agree that taking away easy routes to suicide is a good thing. I accept the research which says that most people attempt it rashly, though I don't think you can say that a low re-attempt rate indicates a rash decision. Suicide hotlines are good things. I do believe strongly that people have a right to die, including for persistent depression, if they so wish.
If anyone out there actually cares about depressed people, the best way to help them is to help fix the depression; give us a better way out than suicide and we'll take it. This means fixing healthcare in America, for example; a top-class universal healthcare system with support for mental health would do a world of good. Secondarily, making sure people have financial security - lift people out of poverty and homelessness. Give them access to community resources and activities. The fact that people are so willing to take on suicide as a problem, but not willing to resolve its causes pains me.
That wasn’t the point that people were making. The point they were making is that removing fans doesn’t address the underlying mental health issues. If anything, arguing that everyone is ok now because fewer people are dying is the cavalier attitude because it overlooks the daily struggles that many will still be having.
Thus regardless of the points you’ve put excellently in your first paragraph, the students mental health issues do also need to be addressed too.
So I see your rebuttal as complimentary to the other points rather than fully dismissing them (ie it shouldn’t be “either/or” but rather “both things needs doing”).
That is a fair argument, but not how I interpreted GP. In the context it seemed like they were arguing against any measure that removes means of suicide away from people because “they’ll just do it regardless”.
> If anything, arguing that everyone is ok now because fewer people are dying
Literally nobody here is saying this. Everyone here has acknowledged that this doesn’t solve the underlying mental health issues (or material issues, per a now dead comment), but might be a good band aid (over a “bullet wound” per another commenter).
What’s more common here is the acknowledgment that this doesn’t solve the mental health issue, and the grim realization that the university won’t do anything about it either way.
This then demonstrates how hard it is to understand the full context of a comment from only the short post and, I hope, makes you appreciate how important it is to assume a more charitable interpretation.
As for the rest of your post: I think we are in complete agreement.
No, it's ab out removing important equipment. Fans in hot weather really help if you don't have AC, As far as I know it gets quite hot in (all of) India. Now their fans are gone as a "hack" for some other problem. At the very least, life of those students will be more uncomfortable. Ceiling fans also have a number of advantages over others, like being mostly noiseless and creating vertical movement, so replacing them with desk fans won't be as good.
Nope this is a myth. India has all sorts of weather (from snowy winters to hot/humid/arid climate and everything in between). The institute this article points to is in Bangalore. Where temperatures are between 15 degree Celsius and 30 degree celsius throughout the year (only during peak summer does it touch 38 to max 40 degree celsius). You don't even need fans for most of the year. Not to mention Bangalore rains.
Be careful when using such studies, as future AI may use those and similar - to remove all freedoms from humans, arguing that humans are dangerous for themselves, thus creating new Matrix?!
Root cause can be maybe a terrible education system and society that is fit more for robots then humans. It just feels wrong blaming individuals for not wanting to participate in it.
Apparently, they already thought about that.
Also: Never had a single accident or suicide for over 2 decades
Exceptions of course for high traffic rooftops specifically designed for human occupation, with appropriate amenities and guard rails. The ones my university locked off were either full of industrial equipment (ACs, etc.), or had low stone ledges that were no longer up to modern spec. Closing them off was the right call.
Assuming teenagers and low 20 something's are the similar the world over, which I find a bit debatable, there still is the question whether there were or are better models to cope with puberty and coming of age for the individual and society.
IISc is very different from IITs other much talked about institution. While latter is full of students from poor/middle-class trying to break out of their economic situation IISc is purely about research. Few understand the pressures a researcher at IISc goes through. Research is hard, more so in India and it takes its toll on some of the finest minds.
"To reduce student suicides by hanging from fans, institute in India removes fans"
So those 4 suicides this year represent 0.1% of the student population. For comparison, the suicide rate for the Indian population in general is closer to 0.01%. [2]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Institute_of_Science
I have been depressed before, and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. But, the decision to go from crushing depression to suicide is often fast (span on a few days) and genuinely reversible, as long as the person lives. We know that far more men die due to suicide, due to their choice of a more fatal weapon (gun to the dead > slashing veins).
Making it harder to commit suicide gives institutions and social systems time to help the person out.
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Indians aged 18-19 at top engineering institutes are probably the most underdeveloped humans you will ever meet.
These kids sacrifice their entire personal/social/philosophical development for 2-6 years, to study 12+ hrs/day for the IIT-JEE entrance exam. They have no life, no hobbies, no personal aspirations outside getting into IIT.
Once they're in, they are often alone & underprepared for the general rigors of campus life. They feel too emotionally about their first relationship or they take their first failure too hard (I have had to talk my India CBSE top 10 rank friend out of harming himself, because he got a 'B' for the first time in his life. I kid you not).
Every part of this process is exploitative and unfair to the children. But, in a country where getting into IIT/IISc opens doors to the world's elite, you can hardly fault them/ their families for simply optimizing for the best value proposition.
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IMO, top Engineering institutes in India need to allow students some time to breathe after they come in. Let them live out their high-school days in some capacity during their freshman year of college. Let them find an identity that isn't tied to their grades and studies.
Lastly, but most importantly, teach them about mental health and struggles that they are bound to face. Help them truly grok that failure is an inevitable part of everyone's life. Unfortunately, I find that this is still under discussed even in elite universities in the US. What hope do these Indian institutes have?
My cousin faced the same issues, he now has an outlet for his frustrations and cares less about success that is ingrained in academia.
The worst part about this is many people in this worldview expect it to be easy after. India has the lowest divorce rate so it’s possible it’s not a delusion to get a good wife with a good job, but society is changing, and with no social skills these people face more problems later.
Or is it just that, only we see the sense?
Naturally we ache at the thought of removing useful ceilung fans rather than addressing the root cause. Yet who would criticise a seat belt, saying we just need to drive safely?
Suicide is hard to reliably predict despite substantial efforts to do so. One if the models I've found useful is that of thwarted belongingness and perceived burdensomeness. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3377972/#!po=40...
On a similar note, I don’t think that teaching mental health is the solution. The pressures in India are terrible. MIT in the US has no legacy program, and has the highest suicide rates, and I know a few people that were committed rapidly and diagnosed haphazardly. This prevents suicide by imprisoning them in powerful psychoactive drugs (antipsychotics) and labeling them as schizophrenic, holding them against their free will to lower suicide stats.
The underlying issue is the pressure to succeed, and they will never remove that in India.
It is the same with the homeless. Society is fine with us living on the street but will give you immediate housing if you want to end your suffering by suicide.
So, we could restructure education and society in a way that would eliminate suffering.
Does anyone want to talk about that?
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/government-to-be...
Views crossing the bridge are a nice touch now as you enter the worlds most locked down city.
Seems obvious.
But the headline isn't about that. It's about tut-tutting this backward institution. Because we, and the students union knows everything the school is doing to curb suicides beyond removing fans.
Can they do more? Maybe. How would I know. I've never heard of this school before.
Not enough, not even a start, but the right choice.
IISC, definitely have money. Even a part time mentah health professional will do.
Is that accurate or old information?
However there’s little safety nets if you lose your job and your family relies on you, there aren’t as many chances to “catch up” or “get back on your feet” like you could in developed countries which does lead to suicide when people struggle with school or jobs. This unfortunately impacted many in the early Covid days. That looming fear of “one mistake and this all is over” is just a lot of weight to hold on your shoulders.
Indian readers, this is just my interpretation of things from spending several years living there. Please point out any inaccuracies in my thoughts as I’m still interested in understanding these issues better.
I’ve visited Delhi before, and at the time was accosted by a seemingly insane beggar. I have yet to visit a developing country that didn’t have a few crazy people on the streets.