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The Current Transcription for June 20, 2017

Host: Anna Maria Tremonti

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Listen to the full episode

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

I hate to say this but it is not my child, when he's in that state. Like and that the only way I can kind of cope and get through it I know that that's not him.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: He's eight years old and when he is violent His mother has a plan. She locks herself in the bathroom and calls 911. There is no place to take him. No psychiatric ward for a kid. And if she takes them to the emergency ward of her local hospital she will find other parents trying to get psychiatric help for their kids. They might be there for days or longer. These families live on Prince Edward Island and after futile struggles for help they're banding together becoming vocal trying to shame their government. Mary-Catherine McIntosh brings us their stories in half an hour. Also today frustrated by all those shiny happy people on your social media feeds would it help to know they're likely lying.

SOUNDCLIP

People tend to exaggerate how happy they are, how wealthy they are, how intellectual they are, how good their relationships are, how strong it connected their family is.

AMT: And how does he know that? Well he has crunched a whole lot of Google’s aggregate data looked at the frequency of certain disturbing and embarrassing Google searches, and come up with a profile of a society that does its best to hide everything from insecurity to sexual quirks and voter intentions to racism. Seth Stephens-Davidowitztakes us through the big lies in the big data in an hour. Then again even as some people try to hide their true feelings an increasing number have been emboldened and Muslim communities from Canada to the U.S. to Britain are feeling it.

SOUNDCLIP

I think that all that is going on in the UK, that is the last we need. It feels like trying to divide the community, dividing the whole country.

AMT: We are starting with that issue. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

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Muslims in U.K., Canada and U.S. fighting fear and anxiety in wake of attacks

Guests: Dalia Mogahed, Sara Mohammed, Amira ELghawabi

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: He drove on the pavement, coming straight towards all the Muslims and as he is coming to them he hit all of them.

VOICE 2: And he did it deliberately. Citizen... Terrorist… eh. And when he finish what he did, he said that I did what I have to do, something similar to that.

VOICE 3: We managed to get him out of the car but he'd punch me one on the head. He was really shouting and aggressive, bad words and something like that. So we didn't talk to him, but he was just spitting on us.

VOICE 4: Many people in the most [unintelligible] Ramadan, we do not need this, you know [unintelligible]

AMT: Well those are witnesses describing the disturbing scene in North London. Sunday night a driver plowed into a group of people who were leaving a mosque in Finsbury Park after their late evening prayers. One person was killed 11 others were injured. The police say this was a terrorist attack. Also this past weekend in Northern Virginia a Muslim teenager was assaulted and killed after leaving a late Ramadan prayer. Nabra Hassanen was last seen leaving her mosque early Sunday with friends heading to a restaurant. Her body was found later that night. Police say they're not investigating it as a hate crime but her family believes that's exactly what it was. Here at home new data released last week by Statistics Canada shows a sharp rise in anti-Muslim hate crimes in 2015. An increase of 60 percent compared to the year before. In the UK the U.S. and Canada Muslims have endured many incidents of Islamophobia and the events of this weekend have them even more on edge. I'm joined now by three Muslim women Amira Elghawaby is the communications director for the National Council of Canadian Muslims, she joins us from Ottawa. Zara Mohammed is the president of the Federation of student Islamic societies for the UK and Ireland. She is in Glasgow. And Dalia Mogahedis the director of research at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding which is a think tank focused on Muslim Americans. She served on Barack Obama's advisory council on faith based and Neighborhood Partnerships in 2009. Dalia Mogahed is joining us from McLean Virginia. Hello everyone welcome.

GUEST: [Cross talking] Good morning. Hi there. How are you doing?

AMT: Dalia I want to start with you. How close to home does the death of 17 year old Nabran Hassanen hit for you?

DALIA MOGAHED: Well thank you very much for having me. It hits very very close to home. Adam’s, the mosque that she was walking back home to, is the mosque that my kids go to Sunday school. It's where we've gone to Friday prayer. I live in the same county. I mean it's also quite scary because I have a son her age. And when I heard about it, it's just sent chills down my spine because it really could have been any of our children.

AMT: A lot of people were leaving the mosque at that time it's Ramadan, right? They were going to a restaurant.

DALIA MOGAHED: Yeah this is this is really a tradition in America where we would go to the mosque late at night especially in the last 10 days of Ramadan for Late Prayers and then young people whoever anyone who walks to a nearby 24 hour diner like I hope to get a meal before we start the next day's fast. So, what this group of kids is doing is very common in terms of just walking to a restaurant at that time of night. And that area is known to be very safe so what happened is just shocking.

AMT: The Fairfax County police have said her death is not a hate crime. And I've got a quote here they say ‘This tragic case appears to be the result of a road rage incident.” That's the quote. The girl's parents however say that she was targeted for her Muslim appearance and dress. What do you make of what happened?

DALIA MOGAHED: What we know in terms of I mean what we've heard from the police is that this this man pulled over after some boys were riding their bike in front of him and allegedly had insulted his car and had gotten into an argument, and he became enraged by this, took his baseball bat and started chasing them. After he caught up with them in a parking lot and given that Nabra was not involved in the initial altercation, according to reports she was the one that by coincidence was caught up to. Everyone else ran didn't know she was left behind and that she was caught, hit by a bat and then later beaten to death and thrown in a pond. And her parents feel that she was targeted because she was a Muslim. We simply don't know. We don't have evidence that was why she was targeted. Some people are asking would with this disruption or this argument from the boys on the bike have caused this level of rage had they not been Muslim. We also have no idea. It's very hard to assess the motive of someone. What we know according to police report is that no racial slurs were heard and that there is no evidence of bias intent.

AMT: The timing is worrisome as well, obviously.

DALIA MOGAHED: Yes.

AMT: Zara Mahammed Let's talk about timing. What are you thinking after the attack in Finsbury Park in London?

ZARA MAHAMMED: I think right now, I first want to express my deep felt thoughts and prayers for Nabra and her family and also everyone intact in Finsbury Park. Right now the community is very sad. We're very frustrated and we feel very fearful and uneasy. This attack has come at a time where it's Ramadan, people are praying and it was specifically targeted against worshipers which is such a terrible thing. I mean people are going to pray and leaving their prayers and their with their families. They were relaxed and all of a sudden you know that this van has just come flying into them. I think on the back of so many other attacks you know the Muslim community has really been made to feel that they need to defend themselves, defend their faith and really say that, you know, they are not terrorists. And there's been so much pressure, and now this attack has come from someone with such a far right extremist ideology. And the fact that it was you know so slow to be called out for what it was, it has been a lot of frustration in the community. And I think you know it's just being a lot of anti-Muslim sentiment that's being generated on the back of these attacks. So many people right now are very fearful of their kind of future.

AMT: Defend themselves meaning somehow they have to apologize for someone else's action?

ZARA MAHAMMED: Yeah absolutely. I mean after you know Westminster, Manchester or you know that even personally, I have some friends, non-Muslim, and we have great relationship and one of them said to me “My husband thinks Muslims need to speak up. Muslims need to say more”. And I was just really surprised thinking you know, this is just a day to day relationship and this is someone who knows me personally and they're coming out with these things. And I think the rhetoric around Muslims, the narratives from all the way from the top politicians to the media, has really made us feel that we need to be responsible. And I think this incident just is a bit of a reminder that actually extremism you know has no religion but if hatred is allowed to fester and division is allowed to fester, then people will attack. And the kind of what we've seen, this kind of anti-Muslim sentiment has really come through strong here, and that people can't even you know express their faith confidently.

AMT: They were the attack this time. But I guess people forget too that Muslims are the target of attacks on both sides, right?

ZARA MAHAMMED: Yes, absolutely. They always get caught in the crossfire and I think because we are such a big part of the society in the UK, you know Muslims are everywhere. We are we're neighbors but we're working alongside people. I think it's not that there is this kind of us and them which has been perpetuated at the moment and we've seen Islamophobia and the mayor of London said that we've seen five times increase in attacks after the London Bridge attack. And [unintelligible] we get so many reports of Muslims, even Muslim students on campus having their veils ripped off, having their scarves pulled off, online abuse, offline abuse, physical abuse so unfortunately it is across society in a while on different levels. I think there is a real fear. There was one girl on my Facebook saying she didn't feel welcome in the UK. I mean obviously these are all highly emotional and there is this kind of a widening sense of fear, but at the same time you know the community has really pulled together and you know some of us are third generation British. And you know we have a high stake in making sure that we don't allow this division to carry on and we keep building strong alliances within the community and keep saying no to hate and absolutely no to extremism.

AMT: Amira Elghawaby, what did you think when you heard about the attacks in the U.K. and this attack in the U.S.?

AMIRA ELGHAWABY: I mean I think what I felt is what many of our committee members have been feeling and that is you know when will this end? You know it's just been so constant particularly this past month when you see terrorist attacks occurring in different parts of the world, and then you see you know followed by a sort of backlash and hate crimes and other incidents that you know where you feel that the community is being targeted unfairly. So I think it's really you know, feeling not only deep deep sadness at injury and the loss of life, but for many Canadians I feel a sense of deja vu. I mean it wasn't too long ago, end of January where is six Quebec Muslim men were in a place of worship in the mosque praying evening prayers when a young individual who had also been consumed by hate, that he had been you know reading online and sort of self-radicalizing, went into a mosque and started shooting. You know as many people as he could and there were of course children in the mosque. The mosque is a place of sanctuary it's a place where you get away from you know the difficulties of the world and just sort of seek solace in and to have that that space violated in such a way, you know and seeing community members killed is still deeply deeply shocking to many of us here in Canada, where you know we still hold on strongly to the belief that this is a country where diversity is celebrated. We hear that from you know the highest office of the land, from the prime minister or the federal government and we've seen more and more provincial governments municipal governments really stepping up and speaking out against hatred as well as you know various sectors and communities. But at the same time you know street level the reports you know seem to be increasing and I think there's also this this increased vigilance and you know people are not people aren't wanting to take it any more and I think they want to speak out on what they're experiencing.

AMT: How mirror how does that, what happened at the mosque in Quebec City, linger for your friends and even your family when you go to mosque for prayer?

AMIRA ELGHAWABY: Well it's the feeling of looking behind your shoulder and not feeling safe. You know we stand shoulder to shoulder in prayer, our kids running in between us. You know it's a moment where you're trying to really deeply connect with a creator and there is a feeling of unease and it and it lingers. And certainly what happened in Finsbury, what happened in Virginia you know, what we're hearing about it. It's always now in the back of our minds. And you know people are talking about increased security. We know few mosques at least have already increased security brought in metal detectors. There is palpable fear. But you know people try to hold on to the good things, the fact that thousands of Canadians came out following the Quebec City massacre and rallies and vigils and you know sending beautiful pictures that their children drew to mosques and calling in you know words of support. So it's trying to find the balance between you know understanding that there is a heightened sense of anxiety but at the same time trying to temper that with the reality that overall we're very fortunate to live in Canada and it is overall safe. But I think we're worried that you know that that may not be always true.

AMT: Your friends elsewhere think that that you have more freedom than they do though, don't they, in Canada?

AMIRA ELGHAWABY: Well, you know absolutely. I think you know when we talked to Committee members in European countries even in the United States and we talk about here in Canada, there are always from the Supreme Court down to our school boards where there is a commitment to protecting religious freedom in this country that that is a cornerstone along with all the other freedoms that Canadians enjoy of our democracy, and that these are freedoms that have been protected not just for Muslims but also for other diverse communities and religious minorities. You know I think we hear a lot of surprise. A friend of mine in France who works for the Muslim NGO You know I talk to him about religious accommodation and how it is in Canada, and certainly it's not perfect, but he laughs and says it sounds like you live in Disneyland because of the struggles, the human rights struggles that they are you know going through on a day to day basis. I mean just simply you know for a young girl to try to wear the headscarf in France is first of all impossible in school, but even on the streets. So certainly in Canada we have something very special here and I think that that has been the messaging again from the federal government as well as other levels to say that you know Canada is strong not despite of its diversity but because of the diversity. And that is a message that you know needs to be continuously heard. But again being very cognisant of unfortunately, it is very small but growing and more vocal group of you know right wing white supremacist hateful people basically, who decades ago you'd have to stand at a street corner or pass around flyers about you know your hateful views or spray paint. Now you know you have got Facebook, now the internet.

AMT: Let me ask Dalia. You've done research into how safe American Muslims feel. What have you found?

DALIA MOGAHED: Well what we've found is that in light of the elections, nearly half of American Muslim women say that they fear for their personal safety from white supremacist or neo-Nazi groups. And that's really alarming that you would have half of the population actually say that their personal safety isn't something they take for granted. We also found that Muslim women are more likely than Muslim men to experience anxiety and depression after the election. So you know I think one point that we have to discuss is how this issue is gendered. Islamophobia is not hitting everybody equally. I think Muslim women according to our data really bear the brunt of this kind of discrimination and this kind of anxiety.

AMT: And is that because they are identifiable? Does it go beyond that? Some are identifiable by their clothing not everyone is.

DALIA MOGAHED: Not everyone is. And Muslim women are more likely to be visibly Muslim than Muslim, most Muslim man so I think that that's one factor. But Muslim women are really bearing the brunt of it. And this issue just has to be taken much more seriously.

AMT: Zara Mohammed is a do you see parallels to what you're saying in the U.K.?

ZARA MOHAMMED: Yes, absolutely. I mean definitely we've had Muslim women far more susceptible to Islamophobic violence than anybody else. And definitely it's to do with them being more visible and also more vulnerable generally. And I think we've seen that on campus and we've seen on the statistics and I think we've, I mean personally we've had experiences of students who have taken off their headscarves because they were afraid to go to university with them on. And we've had, you know…

AMT: How hard is that? How hard is that for someone who is religious and really believes they should have the headscarf on?

ZARA MOHAMMED: It's one of the hardest things, honestly. The headscarf is such a personal aspect of faith and for Muslim women to feel that she has to take a headscarf off. I've had heartbreaking conversations with another female student who felt she needed to take her scarf off but then decided that she would not. But it was on the back of feeling watched you know and she was actually a convert to Islam. She felt her family was uncomfortable with the attacks it just happened. She was going out shopping and people were staring and she just kind of felt this heightened sense of being an alien, being unwelcome. And also you know maybe I'll get a job if I take off. She said that as well. She is concerned about her future prospects. You've even had a commission on employment and Muslims, and we've found that Muslim women were the highest minority of unemployed… of all the minorities, Muslim women are the highest of unemployed in the UK. You've had the European Court of Justice give guidance that it's okay for employers to tell women you know they need to take their hijabs off to carry on in their employment. So we've seen a barrage of attacks against Muslim women and we've also seen the effects on the ground where they are being attacked and...

AMT: We're almost out of time here but I'll just ask you then, Zara what do non-Muslims need to understand then about this moment in time and how people are feeling?

ZARA MOHAMMED: I think it's really important at several levels. I think first of all we need to appreciate that this is everyone's issue and that we all take responsibility as the community and carry on sticking together. I think from the police we need to see more protection and more serious attitude to anti-Muslim hate crime. I think we need more responsible reporting from the media. And I think more also than never, we really need to stick together as communities. And we need to call out hate for what it is. And we need to make sure that we carry on in building our communities and coalitions is good and not allowing to infiltrate.

AMT: Okay we are out of time but it was really important to hear all of your voices. Thank you so much all three of you.

Guests: [Cross talk] Thank you Anna Maria. Thank you so much Anna Maria.

AMT: I've been speaking with Amira Alghawabi, communications director for the National Council of Canadian Muslims she's in Ottawa. Zara Mohammed is the president of the Federation of student Islamic societies for the U.K. and Ireland, she's in Glasgow. And Dalia Mogahed, is the director of research at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding a think tank focused on Muslim Americans. She joins us from McLean Virginia. Stay with us. The news is next. This is The Current

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'How many Islanders have to be failed by the system?' P.E.I. parents fight for better mental health care

Guest: Mary-Catherine McIntosh

AMT: Hello I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current .

[Music: Theme]

AMT: Still to come when Instagram post looked too good to be true. They probably are.

SOUNDCLIP

When I see social media and everybody looks really happy and looks like they're having a great time and looks like they're really rich and I don't feel jealous anymore because I've seen enough search data to know that nobody has it too easy.

AMT: Seth Stephens-Davidowitz is the author of Everybody Lies: Big Data New Data And What The Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are. He'll join me in half an hour. But first the battle for better mental health support for children on Prince Edward Island.

SOUNDCLIP

MOTHER: That's awesome. Can you do that, hun? Good job.

CHILD: [Unintelligible].

MOTHER: Let me see your best trick.

AMT: Well, that's a mom at Burl, Prince Edward Island standing by the backyard trampoline where her eight year old son is performing what he calls a spinaroney. It sounds like fun, but this family is struggling. And the mother you hear is one of a growing number of parents on the island who are speaking out about how their children are treated by the P.E.I. healthcare system. Her little boy freckled with his grass stained knees has been in and out of hospital for years with severe mental health problems. She and other parents across the province say they cannot get the psychiatric help their children need, even in emergencies. And they're making what is traditionally a very private fight, public.

SOUNDCLIP

People are that frustrated that you know they've contacted their MLA, they've written a letter to the health minister, they've tried the official channels and they're at the level of frustration that they really feel that they're at the point where they have to put a bumper sticker on their car that asks the premier “What's it going to take for us to get help for our children?”

AMT: Well even the province’s head of psychiatry has weighed in calling the situation a crisis. CBC producer Mary-Catherine McIntosh went to the island to speak to parents about their experiences. She joins us now from Halifax Hello Mary-Catherine.

MARY-CATHERINE MCINTOSH: Hello.

AMT: What did you hear from parents on Prince Edward Island?

MARY-CATHERINE MCINTOSH: I heard that even when children are in a mental health crisis, even psychotic or suicidal, that it's really difficult to see a psychiatrist. The mom that we heard playing with her son who by the way we've decided not to use her name to protect his privacy, she started noticing problems when her son was a toddler in daycare. He'd go hysterical when she tried to drop him off. And then the problems just progressed from there.

AMT: And what is it like for the family now that he's 8 years old?

MARY-CATHERINE MCINTOSH: Well it's not easy. She's a single mother. She just moved her family to a new house in the country. As you'll hear in my tape she's unpacking some of her son's things and she was trying to find his calendar which she says lays out everything that they have planned for each day, because for him surprises can trigger breakdowns. And when I visited she was going over also her new safety plan. So he's just a little boy but he's very sick.

SOUNDCLIP

MOTHER: Oh if he was you know violent and throwing things out in this area and it escalated quickly I would just pick up my 3 year old and we would run, this bathroom, and lock the door inside. I always carry my cell phone on me at all times just for emergencies it's always in my back pocket. And I would either call for help if I couldn't get through my emergency plan is to call 911.

INTERVIEWER: Have you ever had to do that.

MOTHER: Yes. Yes. Unfortunately we had. And that was after calling my emergency number having them come over to try and help de-escalate the situation, them not being successful, having someone come in remove my 3 year old from the home and then the both of us trying as a team to de-escalate. And when that didn't work then we resolved to calling 911 one.

INTERVIEWER: I think for a lot of people who don't have experience dealing with such a young child with mental health issues, it's kind of shocking to think that a mother could be scared of her little child.

MOTHER: Yeah. And I hate to see this, but it's not my child. When that… when he's in that state. Like that's the only way I can kind of cope and get through it. I know that that's not him when he's in that state. So, you will notice in his room there's nothing except for a bed and a dresser. Because when we would there's been incidents where he's tried to harm himself with even like a book, a hardcover book.

AMT: That sounds so tough, Mary-Catherine what has she done to try to get help?

MARY-CATHERINE MCINTOSH: Well it's been five years and during that time his mom has says that they have seen one child psychiatrist, in person on P.E.I, one time.

SOUNDCLIP

He's had nine trips to the hospital, and out of the nine he's been admitted three times and that's in the last since 2015. But the 2015 one was just one and then we had kind of a reprieve and then it's really been in the last year where it's been eight trips to emerge and three that he was admitted. And it's always the same. Like unit nine is our mental health unit right. He's too young for that unit he's only 8 years old. And the pediatric unit with that type of behavior is not appropriate. So anytime he has been admitted to the pediatric unit they've had to completely do up a room for him so that we'll move TVs off the walls. They have to put everything sharp away. They have to completely revamp the pediatric unit, right, so that he can be safe in a room there because they're not equipped for mental health, unfortunately in the pediatric unit. And he's always on constant care where there is security outside his room 24/7. The most frustrating part is that for mental health we have an emergency plan and it's to go to emerge when this behavior occurs or when this safety issue occurs. We have a plan. I've signed it. It's 100 percent. I follow it to a tee. So when I go to emerge, when I'm following this emergency plan and I'm told time and time and time again that maybe I should consider putting him in a group home. I'm left feeling so helpless. There's been times when, I don't know I just don't know how to go on anymore. And then something just keeps happening and I get this little ounce of fight in me and I just literally pick myself up and I keep going and I keep going and I keep going. And I just pray and hope that you know someday all my effort and all my, you know advocating for him and fighting for answers is going to be worth this.

AMT: My goodness it's horrifying and it's heartbreaking.

MARY-CATHERINE MCINTOSH: And for years he didn't even get a diagnosis. His mom says that she was told again and again that the problems were behavioral, and that you know she should put him to bed earlier or change his diet.

AMT: Has he ever had a diagnosis.

MARY-CATHERINE MCINTOSH: Well yeah eventually but that's after years of trips to the E.R. and it took a pretty dramatic move on his mom's part to get that diagnosis. Last fall when her son was a patient in the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, so that's the main hospital in Charlottetown and he'd been there for six days without seeing a child psychiatrist. His mom was so desperate that she says she took him out of the hospital packed him in the car and drove him four hours to the IWK hospital in Halifax where she says she finally got to see a child psychiatrist and got a proper long assessment and the diagnosis. So what he has is an anxiety disorder Oppositional Defiant Disorder and a learning disability.

AMT: Why is it so hard to see a child psychiatrist on Prince Edward Island?

MARY-CATHERINE MCINTOSH: Well there is one on the ground for the whole island and he's in Summerside which is an hour away. There is a tele-psychiatrist from Ontario who I'm told is full time, but there isn't one working in Charlottetown. And there's a serious lack of psychiatrists in general on P.E.I, one of the worst doctor to patient ratios in the country. And that was before there was a slew of resignations. Since Christmas there have been four and that's a third of the psychiatrists working on the island.

AMT: And why are there so many resignations?

MARY-CATHERINE MCINTOSH: Well Dr. Keiser, Dr. Heather Keiser She's the head of psychiatry for the province, she told me there isn't one reason and she's just been new to the job, she's just had the head job for a year. She told me that in the past doctors were hired who didn't really want to settle on P.E.I. and who weren't there for the long run. But I also spoke with a psychiatrist who didn't want to be part of the story. Who said that in the hospital things have become so overburdened that it's really hard to get anyone the treatment they need.

AMT: The psychiatrists are saying that?

MARY-CATHERINE MCINTOSH: The psychiatrist I spoke with, yes.

AMT: Wow. So the parents are obviously frustrated you can understand that. What are they doing about it now?

MARY-CATHERINE MCINTOSH: Well they've launched a really cheeky campaign taking aim at the premier who's Wade MacLauchlan, and it's called #howmanywade. It started on social media and it's parents sharing sad stories about the lack of care, trying to embarrass the Premier. And the group has a really unlikely leader who's been front and center in this whole fight and she doesn't have a child who's sick and she doesn't even live on P.E.I. She's a Dalhousie University fish scientist and she is from P.E.I. but she lives in Nova Scotia. Her name is Sarah Stewart Clark. And just to give you a little background she started a Facebook page a few years ago for Ireland moms who wanted to share clothing, so it was essentially like a clothing swap. And then she started noticing how widespread mental illness is among her groups members and she started trying to kind of help them. And then that need has sort of swallowed her up. And I visited her at home in Valley, Nova Scotia.

SOUNDCLIP

We are just sticking it to the car now it is kind of rain but going to work. Here is one of the how many Wade bumper stickers that we've had made. We are looking for leadership and we are you know asking the question of the premier how many islanders have to be failed by the system. How many people do we have to lose to suicide, before we really give this issue the attention and the resources that it deserves? I kind of started learning about our mental health services family by family as we had a family go through a crisis I would learn more. And I had a family who was not from the Charlottetown area but were waiting. They had a suicidal child and so they were waiting in the E.R. at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, and they were told there are no beds available in unit nine and so you'll have to wait in the E.R. until a bed becomes available. And that way turned into two days three days four days five days a week. And the mother needed something. And I can't remember what it was but she needed something from home and she posted: “Would anyone be able to drive this from our house in our community to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital for me?”, so I posted that and of course someone offered to help. But then I got a whole bunch of private messages from other members of our group saying I'm also here with my child in the E.R. waiting for a bed from Unit 9. And when I got four or five of those messages I was just absolutely shocked. I had no idea that the situation in the E.R. had gotten that backed up that because we don't have enough psychiatrists and enough beds in our psychiatric facilities the overflow is being held in the E.R. where there aren't the appropriate services for psychiatric patients. So when that occurred I contacted the families and got more information about how long they had been there some had been there four days, some had been there 13 days. So I mean I just thought, if I was well and in a white room with no television there's no Wi-Fi, you know there's nothing for 14 days, I would start to get a little stressed out. So imagine if you are in a mental health crisis and that the room that you're parked in. And that's what many of our families are struggling with because if the children are over 18 they can choose to leave at any moment. And we do see a lot of them. You know I that's seven, eight, nine day mark. They walk out and they leave and they haven't received the assistance they need and they eventually end up back there sometimes in a crisis situation having attempted suicide.

AMT: I've never heard of those stuck in emergency for four days 13 days a couple of weeks.

MARY-CATHERINE MCINTOSH: I know I have to say that it sounded pretty shocking to me too. And then the health department told me that in the last year the longest time a person was in the E.R. waiting for a psychiatric bed was 61 days.

AMT: 61? Six one?

MARY-CATHERINE MCINTOSH: Sixty one days.

AMT: How can that be?

MARY-CATHERINE MCINTOSH: Oh I should say that I was not able to confirm whether that person was a child or an adult. And I did talk to the National Office of the Canadian Mental Health Association who says that mental health patients all over the country are getting stuck for extended periods of time in the E.R. but this is this is extreme. And of course it causes a lot of problems for everyone. I spoke to nurses who say that the E.R. isn't designed for psychiatric patients. They're trained to deal with emergencies and not in therapy. And of course it can be dangerous. And I want to say also that another big issue here is that more and more people are coming to the E.R. for psychiatric help than in the past. And Dr. Heather Keiser who's been working on the island for about a decade says it used to be that she'd see like four or five patients coming to the ER on a night shift for help. And now it's more like 20. So I should also say that's total, not just teens and children.

AMT: Why is that?

MARY-CATHERINE MCINTOSH: It's baffled a lot of people. Are people more sick? Or is it that more people are getting help? The nurses and doctors I spoke with think the latter plays a significant part. Dr. Keizer said for instance when there's a big campaign mental health illness, like you know the Bell Let's Talk campaign that emergency rooms are just inundated with people needing mental health help. So maybe, they say, maybe people are just becoming more comfortable getting help.

AMT: But they say they aren't actually getting the help?

MARY-CATHERINE MCINTOSH: Right. Not in the hospital and not out of it. Sarah who's leading the campaign to shame the P.E.I. government about that is spending like six hours a day trying to help these people. And she told me that on some days she gets 50 e-mails and messages from people trying to get help from her, a Nova Scotia fish scientist.

SOUNDCLIP

I just have a message from one of the mothers so I want to check to see what it says. It is two o'clock in the afternoon here and I've already received one two three four. I've already had nine. And most of our messaging happens in the evening, so they'll be they'll be many more come as the day goes on. And if I just look through we have another member who has a daughter with an eating disorder and anxiety and they are what they're on the wait list. But you know how her family is expected to cope, especially young people. I think that's the most disturbing part for me is that we have eight and 10 and 11 year old children who have not just anxiety or some small social issues, but legitimately we're born with the genetics of having a mental illness. And I find it really hard to read some of the stories because. It's more than a family should be expected to bear. Like there's situations I read and I think I would not be strong enough to survive that I really wouldn't.

AMT: Mary-Catherine, what has the response to this group of parents been like what is the government saying?

MARY-CATHERINE MCINTOSH: It seems like they're feeling the pressure. Dr. Heather Keiser who's the head of psychiatry for the province, she caused quite a stir a few weeks ago by coming out and calling it a crisis. But when I wanted to interview her the health department arranged for me to meet her with the health minister Robert Henderson.

SOUNDCLIP

Dr. Keiser and Minister are both in his office, come on in.

This is Dr. Keiser.

[Cross Talking]

Nice to meet you.

MARY-CATHERINE MCINTOSH: So we're sitting around a roundtable in the Minister's office and she told me that things are already changing.

SOUNDCLIP

DR. KEISER: I think actually despite perhaps some discomfort initially with some of my comments I think really this that we've moved in a really positive direction. I'm really gratified by the cooperation that I have gotten with the province and really its willingness to step up and really listen to the people. One thing I would say that there's not one person listening to this program who doesn't know someone, hasn't got a family member, hasn't got a friend, hasn't heard a story that has really been connected to mental health and addictions. And all of us have been touched by the stories in the media. They're heartrending. And the thing about those heartrending stories is that they can inspire perhaps frustration, anger but then that can move towards action and action makes a difference.

INTERVIEWER: So you've noticed a shift.

DR. KEISER: Absolutely.

INTERVIEWER: It's just a really recent one.

DR. KEISER: I would say there's been a very significant shift in the last three weeks it's been really gratifying.

INTERVIEWER: And what does that look like for someone on the outside? Just more meetings more like “yes, let's do something”, what's the ship look like?

DR. KEISER: More than that. It's really been more than just meetings. We've got job descriptions written that include details about how to deliver better services on the ground. We were looking at more investment I mean real commitments of monies to help us. People have stepped up with the recruitment effort for psychiatry. We have been really an expected by-product. I was in Ottawa last week recruiting, along with some other responsibilities there, and when I met with the residents they all had read the articles. And ironically it hadn't turned them off. Actually they go: “We know you, we trust you, we would like to come to work with you?

AMT: Hmm. So, she's talking about recruiting. But what about those parents stuck in the E.R. with their sick children?

MARY-CATHERINE MCINTOSH: Well, Dr. Keiser says one of the things that's changing now is that patients are getting more psychiatric treatment while they're waiting in the emergency.

SOUNDCLIP

DR. KEISER: In terms of people getting everything they want when they want it. I suspect that's not happening. I think that when you have a child in distress, when it's your child who's sick, your child who's feeling afraid, you want immediate action immediately. Certainly that's available through the emergency room and I would think people are seeking that and they're getting that generally speaking. It's the follow up in the community that we still need to enrich, and we still need to provide sort of seamless support. We're working on it. We're certainly further down the road than we were a year ago. But we're not quite there yet.

VOICE 1: Well I think as the Ministry of Health and Wellness in the province of Prince Edward Island, we acknowledge that there's a growing trend of issues that are predominantly focused around mental health. And as a as a province we are working on implementing a number of changes and improvements to the mental health care system. And Dr. Keiser, you know with her background certainly and her position here, can try to address some of these issues to make sure that we're not going to repeat problems from the past. We need a little bit of time here to address that.

AMT: Okay, Mary Catherine. So the minister says things are going to change but it's going to take time. In the meantime what are the families doing to cope?

MARY-CATHERINE MCINTOSH: Well for one thing, you know that Facebook group that I mentioned earlier they're supporting one another. Volunteers are all over P.E.I. doing things for other families who have sick children. So they're even cooking meals and cleaning strangers houses the houses of people who have children in hospital. And when I was on the island I hitched a ride with a lobster fisherman named Krysta and we drove west an hour to deliver grocery money, where another mother named Carol Harrison who was a total stranger was working as a waitress. Carol's son is 20 but he's been in and out of hospitals since he was 15, and he's very sick and she has to care for him. And she gets paid by the hour so when she doesn't work she doesn't get paid. So things are very tough for her. And Krysta, the woman delivering the grocery money said that she has a sick niece who has not been able to get the care the family thinks she needs. So here's Krysta and me as we're waiting for Carol.

SOUNDCLIP

KRYSTA: We can get out now if you want. We will wait for her, that way she is not, like completely overwhelmed trying to find us.

MARY-CATHERINE MCINTOSH: Sure

KRYSTA: Hi. I am Krysta, nice to meet you

CAROL: Nice to meet you, Krysta.

KRYSTA: And that is for you.

CAROL: Oh. Thank you.

KRYSTA: And you have my number, so if you need anything let me know.

CAROL: OH. Thank you.

KRYSTA: You're very welcome.

CAROL: You are an angel.

KRYSTA: No. I am not. I am just able to help.

CAROL: [Sobbing]Okay.

KRYSTA: And I am only a phone call away.

CAROL: [Sobbing] Okay.

KRYSTA: I have a niece with mental health issues and she’s had a lot support.

CAROL: Oh. They are missing. The system is missing.

KRYSTA: She was taken to Halifax, instead of going to Charlottetown because they knew she'd be just medicated and sent home, so she was taken to Halifax and kept there for five days. So they determined what was wrong with her and what worked.

CAROL: The first 12 days he was in emergency because they had nowhere to put him. That's our system unfortunately. So it's been years and years and a few times that we tried to get help at first, they said well maybe he's just misbehaving, maybe he should go into a group home. I said he's not misbehaving. He needs help, what does he have? One of his doctors suggested perhaps schizophrenia. One said well they really didn't know, so at this time they wouldn't do anything for him. They just wait and see, and see him in three months. And then the other ones just basically “let's medicate him”. Things have been really hard. I've had to sell my belongings. I've had to sell my couch. I've had to sell things my grandmother has given me at the pawn shop. It's been so hard because there's not the proper help and the running around to try and get the help, and then you need to be there for your child. But nobody will help you to be there for your child, so you have to work on top of that. And it's just it's a vicious circle.

MARY-CATHERINE MCINTOSH: So, Anna Maria, although the government says that things are changing, life for these families is still very difficult.

AMT: It sounds unbelievably difficult. Mary-Catherine McIntosh, thank you for bringing us those stories.

MARY-CATHERINE MCINTOSH: You're welcome.

AMT: Mary-Catherine McIntosh is the CBC network producer based in Halifax. If you're in P.E.I. or elsewhere in the country and want to tell us about your experience with mental health care for children, send us an email through our website cbc.ca/thecurrent. Click on the Contact link or find us on Facebook or on Twitter @thecurrentCBC. And stay with us in our next half hour. It is a six letter word. How we use it can say a whole lot about who we really are. Know what it is? G O O G L E. Google. We're talking Google. Big Data Big Lies, when we return. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current on CBC Radio 1

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What Google searches reveal about the human psyche

Guest: Seth Stephens-Davidowitz

AMT: Hello I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: We first decided and first started researching, doing the van life. We found the #vanlife.

VOICE 2: All those Instagram pictures that we saw of people parked and state and national parks and everything looks amazing.

VOICE 1: Beautiful girls in like, these super trendy outfits living in vans and super trendy vans.

VOICE 2: Oh. Check out this parking spot is on the edge of a cliff and I've got this campfire we're all singing, we have got guitars.

VOICE 1: And although some days do look like that in some days, and those are the photos you want to share.

VOICE 2: And we didn't know we were just like: “Oh that's what it's going to be all about. Wicked cool. Let’s do that.”

VOICE 1: People want escape from their world. They don't want, you know, reality.

AMT: Wow that is Shelby and Simon a couple from Ottawa who left their lives behind to hit the road and live out of their campervan. If you want to get inside the life without actually living at yourself, Shelby and Simon uploaded their journeys to YouTube. And they're not alone; they're part of a movement well documented in social media called Van Life. If you search the hash tag Van Life in Instagram or Facebook you will see photographs of people who said no to mortgages and yes to four wheeled freedom. These Van Lifers post from beaches and national parks. They take pictures of their feet wading in cool water, we know it's cool water. Their little kitchens, their dogs, all to prove how great van life can be and leaving many people with escape envy. But my next guest says you shouldn't let social media make you feel bad about your life. In fact he has studied millions of Google searches and gained some surprising insights into people's real lives. Seth Stephens-Davidowitz is a former Google data scientist. He's a contributing op ed writer for The New York Times and he's the author of Everybody Lies: Big Data New Data And What The Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are. And Seth Stephens-Davidowitz is joining us from Atlanta, Georgia. Hello.

SETH STEPHENS-DAVIDOWITZ: Thanks so much for having me.

AMT: Why shouldn't we let social media make us feel bad about our lives?

SETH STEPHENS-DAVIDOWITZ: Well, I think social media gives a very curated and false impression of who people are. The data of people's lives on social media doesn't match up with the real world data that people tend to exaggerate how happy they are, how wealthy they are, how intellectual they are, how good their relationships are, how strong and connected their family is. And if you just think that images you see on social media are real, you'll feel very depressed about how your life compares.

AMT: So they are lying on social media?

SETH STEPHENS-DAVIDOWITZ: I don't know if it's directly lying or just exaggerating.

AMT: Sin of omission? [Laughs]

SETH STEPHENS-DAVIDOWITZ: Sin of omission, yes. So one example is if you compare the magazines, the National Enquirer which is a trashy gossipy magazine and the Atlantic Monthly, which is an intellectual magazine, The National Enquirer actually sells more copies every year. But the Atlantic Monthly is forty five times more popular on social media because people want their friends to think they're very intellectual. They don't want to tell their friends that they're reading the National Enquirer.

AMT: Good example. So you got all this information through Google searches. Am I right?

SETH STEPHENS-DAVIDOWITZ: Yes. A lot of what I talk about in the book is the truth and Google search data. So I think that's one source where people are really really honest and they're not putting up a front. They're not trying to impress anybody they're just looking for information. And you get a very different perspective on who people are. I think a more accurate and on his perspective of who people are.

AMT: And so how much do they reveal about themselves in their Google searches?

SETH STEPHENS-DAVIDOWITZ: A lot. So there are more searches every year for porn than whether, although only about 25 percent of men and eight percent of women say they watch porn. So it's a very different perspective on human beings than you see in other sources.

AMT: How does the data that you look at differ from traditional ways of surveying or polling people?

SETH STEPHENS-DAVIDOWITZ: Well it's less structured, it's not as organized. Usually we think of data as very structured based on survey answers. So people check boxes or they put in numbers on surveys. Google searches is just people in their everyday lives. The words they put in that search engine so it's a little harder to make sense of. But on the other hand it's much more honest and revealing. And I think basically revolutionary in the information it can tell us about who people are.

AMT: And I want to know more about the things you uncovered but before we do that, what were you actually looking at? Were you looking at aggregate data? What did you have access to?

SETH STEPHENS-DAVIDOWITZ: It's definitely just anonymous and aggregate data. So I don't know what any particular person search is I just know what people in a city search for or people in a certain time period search for.

AMT: Is this information that Google has that you got or did you go on Google and figure it out?

SETH STEPHENS-DAVIDOWITZ: This is data that they aggregate the search data and they give it to searchers.

AMT: Okay. So what did you learn about racism in the U.S. by examining Internet searches?

SETH STEPHENS-DAVIDOWITZ: Yes. So there is a disturbing element to some of this research. When people are lying, one of the ways people lie is they make themselves look better and they don't admit their racist tendencies. So the comparison on Google is depressing even horrifying, the frequency with which Americans make racist searches, are predominantly looking for jokes mocking African-Americans. And these searches predict very very strongly various political behaviors voting patterns.

AMT: You can make the connection?

SETH STEPHENS-DAVIDOWITZ: Yeah. So for example places that made these searches in highest numbers, there were most likely to make racist searches where there is almost perfect relationship between the volume of these searches and support for Donald Trump in the Republican primary. So it's really clear in this data that racism played a huge role in Trump's rise even if people wouldn't admit that.

AMT: And you also looked at what people were searching for right after Barack Obama was elected in 2008. What did you find?

SETH STEPHENS-DAVIDOWITZ: Yes. I mean another one where people you know on TV or in everyday conversation, people are saying whatever they thought of Obama's policies or positions that it was moving that we had an African-American president. But you see it the same period that searches for really really racially charged jokes mocking African-Americans were rising to their highest levels yet. And one in 100 searches on the night that Obama was elected with the word Obama also included the N word or KKK. So really a very very different in the privacy of their own homes, Americans were reacting to this event much differently than they were publicly proclaiming they were reacting.

AMT: And that was rather than using the phraseology like first black president or the like celebratory phrase.

SETH STEPHENS-DAVIDOWITZ: Exactly. More people are making more people are making searches kind of disturbed by having an African-American president than excited about having an African-American president.

AMT: And so let's get back to what you said about the election of Donald Trump and what you learned about who voted for him. Tell me a little bit more of what you saw.

SETH STEPHENS-DAVIDOWITZ: Well, I think one thing that happened is you see how people responded when Obama was president. So the racist searches people were also searching for and eventually joining a website called Stormfront which is a white nationalist website. And you see kind of a direct relationship that these people who were antagonized by Obama's election and motivated to join these white nationalist websites or make racist searches then put Trump over the edge in the Republican primary.

AMT: And how do you know that you're making the right conclusion with that data?

SETH STEPHENS-DAVIDOWITZ: Well, you have to be definitely careful when you're using statistics and data but there are a lot of tools that data scientists have to control for other variables. You can see is there something else about these areas that explain the relationship? Is it because these areas have more elderly people, or more people with fewer years of education or more people own guns or more people who attend church? And you control for all these variables and nothing explains the result. The only thing that really explains the result is the racism.

AMT: You also looked at clues before the election on voter turnout for Hillary Clinton, that are may be down.

SETH STEPHENS-DAVIDOWITZ: Yes exactly. So if you ask people in a survey: “Are you going to vote in an election?”, just about everybody says yes but then only about 55 percent of Americans actually turn out to vote. So you can't really know from a survey who is going to be in the 55 percent who vote and who is going to be in the 45 percent who don't vote. But you can see on Google. People make searches in the weeks leading up to Election Day. They search for how to vote or where to vote or polling places, and these searches predict very very strongly how high turnout will be. And what we saw in this previous election, in the 2016 election, is that in cities with large African-American populations were 90 or 95 percent of the population is black, there was a large drop in searches for voting information, searches for how to vote or where to vote. So it was very clear from the search data that black turnout was going to be substantially down compared to previous elections. And since African-Americans support Democrats 85 or 90 percent of the time, this was a terrible sign for Hillary Clinton and one of the reasons she did so much worse than polls predicted.

AMT: Because that that did carry out during the election, right?

SETH STEPHENS-DAVIDOWITZ: Exactly. The black turnout was way down.

AMT: If her people had been looking at the data you were looking at they would have seen that coming.

SETH STEPHENS-DAVIDOWITZ: They would have seen that coming and maybe put more energy into getting black turnout up.

AMT: So interesting, ay? It all depends on if you know what to look for, you know what to ask.

SETH STEPHENS-DAVIDOWITZ: Exactly.

AMT: So, as you go through this stuff tell us about our personal lives what can google searches tell us about our insecurities?

SETH STEPHENS-DAVIDOWITZ: Well there's a lot of bodily insecurity, and some of it doesn't always line up with conventional wisdom, I think so Google Ad Words from people's visits on websites they guess if people are male or female and they estimate how frequently men and women go to sites looking for weight loss or bodily improvement. And there are almost as many men looking for ways to improve their body as their woman, which goes against a little bit of conventional wisdom, I think. We know that women are insecure about their bodies. It's less talked about male insecurity. And 20 percent of searches looking how to change one's breasts are from men looking how to make their own breasts smaller to get rid of what they call man boobs. So there's a lot of stuff in bodily insecurity that we don't necessarily talk about but that really plays a big factor in many people's lives.

AMT: You made another unusual discovery about breasts breast feeding, what was it?

SETH STEPHENS-DAVIDOWITZ: [Laughs] So this is actually one of my favorite things I found in this data is that the number one search that starts my husband wants in the country of India, is my husband wants me to breastfeed him. And it's in India and pretty much no other country that has this desire. And it's not just cherry picking that particular phrasing, different variants of the wording also give the same result. And when people are looking for tips on breastfeeding in the United States or Canada or most countries in the world, not surprisingly, most searches looking for breastfeeding tips are looking for ways to breastfeed a child. But in India there are about equally split between breastfeeding a husband and breastfeeding a child. And what I really found interesting about this particular finding is after I published it they began interviewing residents of India and doctors in India and nobody said they knew anything about this. But I'm 100 percent sure based on the data that there are a large number of men in India and pretty much nowhere else who want to be breast fed by their wives. But it's not talked about.

AMT: It's interesting it fits right into that theory that people say one thing on the Internet and one thing in real life.

SETH STEPHENS-DAVIDOWITZ: Yes. And it's just amazing that something could be so widespread but basically unknown in polite society.

AMT: Well it's not the only thing you realize that people want to keep private. Tell us more about what Google can tell us about people's sex lives?

SETH STEPHENS-DAVIDOWITZ: Well I think the number one thing that Google tells us is how little sex people are having the number one complaint that people have about a marriage is that it's sexless. That's far more common than searching for an unhappy or a loveless marriage. The number one complaint that people have about their partner is whether it's a boyfriend, girlfriend, husband or wife, is that partner won't have sex with me. This easily beats the second complaint that the partner won't text me back.

AMT: [laughs] There are [unintelligible] that close, are there? You can keep going.

SETH STEPHENS-DAVIDOWITZ: Not, they are close. And then one thing that's interesting is there are about twice as many complaints that a boyfriend won't have sex with me than a girlfriend want to have sex with, me which again goes against conventional wisdom.

AMT: At the same time could it be that the people who are unhappy with sex are the ones who were there googling and the ones who are happy just are like they're kind of busy they're not on their computer? [Laughs]

SETH STEPHENS-DAVIDOWITZ: [Laughs]Yes. Someone said people who are doing the most canoodling are doing the least googling or that was a good line.

AMT: [Laughs]

SETH STEPHENS-DAVIDOWITZ: But yeah I don't think you can go from this search data to say exactly how many sexless marriages there are, how many boyfriends are withholding sex or how many girlfriends are withholding sex but I think you can see very very clearly in this data that it's a pretty widespread issue.

AMT: What can you tell us about pornography and how it's viewed?

SETH STEPHENS-DAVIDOWITZ: Well it's viewed a lot. That's the first thing that's very very clear on the Internet. There are definitely some surprising things in pornography. So one of them is rape porn or porn featuring violence against women and this is disturbing. It is very very popular which maybe isn't so surprising, but somewhat surprising is that it's about twice as popular among women than men which again it's not something that's often talked about. But you know I think people's desires don't always fit neatly into a politically correct bucket.

AMT: Hmm. Yes and what they might want to watch isn't necessarily how they want to live.

SETH STEPHENS-DAVIDOWITZ: Yes, exactly. And there's a difference between fantasy and what people want in real life.

AMT: You also looked at information that you could glean about the sexual orientation of Americans from their Internet searches for pornography.

SETH STEPHENS-DAVIDOWITZ: Yes. So in the United States there are parts of the country and it's probably similar in Canada where it's harder to be gay. So places like Mississippi or Tennessee or Kentucky it's really really hard to be gay. Very very few people in the States support gay marriage. In places like New York and California and Rhode Island it's much easier to be gay. Support for gay marriage is very very high in these places. And you see in survey data that in places where it's easy to be gay much larger percentage of American men say that they're gay, in a survey. So you know almost twice as many Americans in California say they're gay as in Mississippi. But if you look at pornography data gay male porn is about equally popular in every state. It's not much higher in California than Mississippi. So I think what's happening is that the gay men in Mississippi are not admitting this, perhaps to themselves and definitely to surveys. And another thing that's interesting is the number one question that women have about their husbands is whether he's gay. And these searches are predominately concentrated in places where it's hard to be gay in places in the United States like Mississippi and Tennessee and Kentucky.

AMT: Interesting. Can you tell me how, like when you're looking at this data, how many people are we talking about? What are the numbers like?

SETH STEPHENS-DAVIDOWITZ: Well the numbers tend to be huge because it's Google search data right. So it has kind of everybody. So I mean it depends on the particular search bullets but it's generally very very… It's not like a survey sample of you know 100 people or a thousand people. We're usually talking about tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands or millions of searches.

AMT: So you're mining of this data also tells you about the response to changes to laws. Tell us what you found out about abortion?

SETH STEPHENS-DAVIDOWITZ: Yeah well this is probably the most disturbing thing I saw in this data. I'm pretty convinced right now that the United States has an epidemic of self-induced abortion. Because first of all I was shocked by how frequently people were making searches for self-induced abortion, searches for how to cause a miscarriage, how to give yourself a miscarriage or even really really disturbing search is how to use a coat hanger to get an abortion. And these searches are almost perfectly correlated with parts of the country where it's hard to get a legal abortion in the United States now. And they rose substantially in 2011 when many states in America started clamping down on illegal abortion. And during this time period there was no rise in Canada which where the laws didn't change. So I think you see really really clearly just an enormous demand for self-induced abortion in United States. And you also see in places where it's hard to get abortion there are missing pregnancies, there are pregnancies that aren't showing up in birth data or official abortion data but almost certainly my analysis suggests are basically women doing abortions on their own, now.

AMT: Are you assuming too much though, about people based on their Internet searches? Do you know that what they are searching for actually does relate to real life?

SETH STEPHENS-DAVIDOWITZ: I think you definitely have to be a little bit cautious. One thing that you do see over and over again, these searches do, when we have some objective off line behavior to compare the searches to the searches do correlate with this behavior. So scholars have shown that searches for suicide correlate very very strongly with actual suicides and the searches correlate much stronger than surveys asking people if they have suicidal ideation. And we see that searches for information on voting as I mentioned correlate with actual voting turnout. And I've done research on searches for Islamophobic searches. These correlate with hate crimes against Muslim Americans. So I think there's increasing evidence that searches even strange searches that might seem a little hard to interpret do predict real world behaviors.

AMT: It's interesting because you're what you're doing is tracking behaviors in real time as opposed to after the fact.

SETH STEPHENS-DAVIDOWITZ: Exactly. So you couldn't, we've even talked about since Islamic phobic searches predict hate crimes against Muslims, police departments could use this information that if these searches are rising they may want to put extra security outside a mosque.

AMT: They wouldn't necessarily know who's doing the search but they would get an idea of the area where somebody could be a target.

SETH STEPHENS-DAVIDOWITZ: Exactly and I think we have to be really careful using this data at the individual level. That's I think another level of privacy concern. And there are legal questions but I think it's also very very hard to predict what an individual is going to do. Even the worst search in the world is unlikely to lead to any bad behavior. But it's much easier to predict what a community will do that if lots of people are making these searches, then more bad stuff is about to happen.

AMT: How could big data be used to improve our lives?

SETH STEPHENS-DAVIDOWITZ: I think there are lots of ways. One of my favorite examples in the book in the Islamophobia section, I talk about that data is available minute by minute. We can see how frequently people are making Islamophobic searches and we can compare this to outside events. So for example in December 2015 Barack Obama gave his speech to try to lower Islamophobia. And it was a beautiful speech it was a moving speech. He talked about how it's a responsibility of Americans to not give into fear to appeal to freedom. So you can actually see what happened to Islamophobic searches. How did they change during and after the speech? And you see that Islamophobic searches didn't drop. They didn't even stay the same. They went way up. So basically everything Obama was saying was backfiring. But then Obama said one thing in the speech, where he said that Muslim Americans are our friends and neighbors our sports heroes and they're the men and women who will die in uniform protecting our country. And after he said that line for the first time in many years the top descriptor of Muslims on Google was not Muslim terrorists or Muslim extremist or Muslim refugees. It was Muslim athletes followed by Muslim soldiers and those kept the top spot for a week afterwards. So basically what this analysis said this minute by minute analysis said is that to change people's feelings about Muslim Americans don't lecture them don't give them a sermon don't tell them about responsibility. Subtly provoke their curiosity change how they think about a group that's causing them so much rage and anxiety.

AMT: That's fascinating. Just as you just said that's a very powerful tool.

SETH STEPHENS-DAVIDOWITZ: Yes and actually a week after we did this we published this analysis in The New York Times and two weeks later Obama gave another speech and I think he had read our analysis because he basically stopped with all the lecturing. He'd stopped talking about responsibility and he just doubled down on curiosity. He said how Muslim Americans build skyscrapers of Chicago and their farmers and merchants. And after he gave this speech Islamophobic searches actually dropped. So it really shows I think the power of this data to maybe not just learn about society's problems or maybe help fix society's problems.

AMT: And on the other side, that suggest that the more directed or conscious working on another side could actually manipulate people into looking for other things though. Sounds like pretty much were pretty malleable.

SETH STEPHENS-DAVIDOWITZ: Yeah big data isn't good or bad it's just powerful.

AMT: Yes, yes.

SETH STEPHENS-DAVIDOWITZ: I mean that's an example where I think you know Obama had good intentions and his staff had good intentions and really want to lower Islamophobia. So but you know you could have people who don't have good intentions and use this data to try to rile people up.

AMT: How has this research affected the way you see the world?

SETH STEPHENS-DAVIDOWITZ: Well one thing I can't really deny is that it's lowered in my opinion of my fellow human beings. Because when you study this much racism and animosity and hatred does make you think less of people on average. You know I wish that wasn't my conclusion but unfortunately to some degree it is.

AMT: So, the actual searches surprised you, the choices of words, you weren't you weren't prepared for what you found.

SETH STEPHENS-DAVIDOWITZ: Well and just how frequently they were made. Like, you always know that there are some people who are racist. But my research suggests that the numbers are much larger than I would have guessed. So that's one thing I think. A second thing is that it makes me feel less alone in my insecurities and anxieties. So when I see social media and everybody looks really happy and looks like they're having a great time and looks like they're really rich, and I don't feel jealous anymore because I've seen enough search data to know that nobody has it too easy. I think the other thing, the final way it has changed me is I like to think I'm now a more compassionate person, because I don't really usually come across, my friends and family members aren't looking to do self-induced abortions are suffering from child abuse or in a real desperate situation, but you do see many people in real struggle and the search data. So I'm trying to I try to be more compassionate based on that.

AMT: It's amazing how much how evocative data can be, ha?

SETH STEPHENS-DAVIDOWITZ: Yeah we usually think of data as lifeless. But this new type of data which is so rich is really evocative. You do see people's stories played out in their searches.

AMT: Where do you see research such as this going in the future?

SETH STEPHENS-DAVIDOWITZ: Well, I say that there's basically a social science revolution coming. The amount of information we now have the size the data sets the honesty in some of these data sets in the search data, in pornography data, we're basically learning for the first time who we really are. So I think unprecedented insights into the human psyche. And you know I'm proud of the work I've done in the book I wrote but I really think it's just the beginning.

AMT: Fascinating stuff. Thanks for speaking with me today.

SETH STEPHENS-DAVIDOWITZ: Thanks so much for having me.

AMT: Seth Stephens-Davidowitz is the author of Everybody Lies: Big Data New Data And What The Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are. He joined us from Atlanta, Georgia. Let us know what you're thinking as you listen to him you can find us on Facebook. You can reach us on Twitter @thecurrentCBC or go to our website cbc.ca/thecurrent that is our program for today stay with Radio 1 for q with Tom power. When Canadian Chilina Kennedy auditioned for Beautiful the Carole King musical she did it in front of Carole King. She was eight months pregnant at the time she got the part and after two years on Broadway she is bringing the show home to Canada. She joins Tom power today. A reminder if you missed part of our show today or any day, catch up with the CBC Radio app free from the App Store or Google Play. We were talking earlier about, well just now, about how social media can make you feel about your own life. We're going to close by handing the keys to Van lifer Shane Stedman who is on Vancouver Island for a tour of his mobile home. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti Thanks for listening to The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

I was living in an apartment and I kind of went through a breakup and needed change in my life and I said this is like the perfect time for me to like live an alternative lifestyle. And yeah I just went for it. I had to buy a bunch of blankets because it was so cool at first and I didn't want to work any heater, anything. Here I got my bed. I sometimes keep it out full time. It depends on how I feel. It actually transforms into two couches. You can have a table in the middle but I kind of just like to hang out in the bed like that, and play my instruments, be on my laptop or try to get some Wi-Fi off someone or something. I have a sink here. I have a big water tank in the bottom. I'm not sure how many gallons it is or anything but it has a pump on the side and it is super easy and practical. You need a couple of pumps and then it keeps going. I'm really into nutrition and I try to eat well all around. I can get all my food ready four burners is like, so nice. So I even have an oven which is kind of cool, it is all for propane obviously. My fridge works off electricity. Tons of storage room, actually. A bunch of food in there, aome food. Yeah it's pretty nice. I can make a second bed if I wanted to. This folds down and you can put some boards here. And then I used to have another mattress that you can just put on top. But I kind of got rid of it for just space wise. It's all about minimalizing your life so you kind of keep everything that you love.

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June 20, 2017 Full Episode Transcript

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