Texting that saves lives
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0:02 - 0:04To most of you, this is a device
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0:04 - 0:07to buy, sell, play games,
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0:07 - 0:09watch videos.
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0:09 - 0:11I think it might be a lifeline.
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0:11 - 0:13I think actually it might be able to save more lives
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0:13 - 0:15than penicillin.
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0:15 - 0:16Texting:
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0:16 - 0:19I know I say texting and a lot of you think sexting,
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0:19 - 0:22a lot of you think about the lewd photos that you see --
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0:22 - 0:25hopefully not your kids sending to somebody else --
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0:25 - 0:27or trying to translate the abbreviations
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0:27 - 0:30LOL, LMAO, HMU.
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0:30 - 0:32I can help you with those later.
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0:32 - 0:34But the parents in the room
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0:34 - 0:35know that texting is actually
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0:35 - 0:38the best way to communicate with your kids.
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0:38 - 0:41It might be the only way to communicate with your kids.
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0:41 - 0:42(Laughter)
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0:42 - 0:47The average teenager sends 3,339 text messages a month,
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0:47 - 0:51unless she's a girl, then it's closer to 4,000.
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0:51 - 0:54And the secret is she opens every single one.
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0:54 - 0:58Texting has a 100 percent open rate.
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0:58 - 0:59Now the parents are really alarmed.
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0:59 - 1:01It's a 100 percent open rate
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1:01 - 1:03even if she doesn't respond to you
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1:03 - 1:05when you ask her when she's coming home for dinner.
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1:05 - 1:06I promise she read that text.
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1:06 - 1:12And this isn't some suburban iPhone-using teen phenomenon.
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1:12 - 1:14Texting actually overindexes
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1:14 - 1:16for minority and urban youth.
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1:16 - 1:19I know this because at DoSomething.org,
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1:19 - 1:20which is the largest organization
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1:20 - 1:23for teenagers and social change in America,
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1:23 - 1:25about six months ago we pivoted
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1:25 - 1:26and started focusing on text messaging.
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1:26 - 1:31We're now texting out to about 200,000 kids a week
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1:31 - 1:33about doing our campaigns to make their schools more green
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1:33 - 1:36or to work on homeless issues and things like that.
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1:36 - 1:40We're finding it 11 times more powerful than email.
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1:40 - 1:46We've also found an unintended consequence.
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1:46 - 1:49We've been getting text messages back like these.
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1:49 - 1:52"I don't want to go to school today.
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1:52 - 1:54The boys call me faggot."
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1:54 - 1:59"I was cutting, my parents found out,
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1:59 - 2:01and so I stopped.
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2:01 - 2:03But I just started again an hour ago."
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2:03 - 2:06Or, "He won't stop raping me.
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2:06 - 2:07He told me not to tell anyone.
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2:07 - 2:10It's my dad. Are you there?"
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2:10 - 2:13That last one's an actual text message that we received.
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2:13 - 2:16And yeah, we're there.
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2:16 - 2:19I will not forget the day we got that text message.
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2:19 - 2:21And so it was that day that we decided
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2:21 - 2:24we needed to build a crisis text hotline.
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2:24 - 2:26Because this isn't what we do.
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2:26 - 2:27We do social change.
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2:27 - 2:29Kids are just sending us these text messages
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2:29 - 2:32because texting is so familiar and comfortable to them
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2:32 - 2:34and there's nowhere else to turn
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2:34 - 2:36that they're sending them to us.
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2:36 - 2:39So think about it, a text hotline; it's pretty powerful.
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2:39 - 2:40It's fast, it's pretty private.
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2:40 - 2:44No one hears you in a stall, you're just texting quietly.
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2:44 - 2:46It's real time.
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2:46 - 2:49We can help millions of teens with counseling and referrals.
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2:49 - 2:51That's great.
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2:51 - 2:56But the thing that really makes this awesome is the data.
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2:56 - 2:58Because I'm not really comfortable just helping that girl
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2:58 - 3:00with counseling and referrals.
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3:00 - 3:03I want to prevent this shit from happening.
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3:03 - 3:07So think about a cop.
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3:07 - 3:08There's something in New York City.
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3:08 - 3:11The police did it. It used to be just guess work, police work.
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3:11 - 3:15And then they started crime mapping.
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3:15 - 3:16And so they started following and watching
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3:16 - 3:19petty thefts, summonses, all kinds of things --
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3:19 - 3:21charting the future essentially.
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3:21 - 3:23And they found things like,
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3:23 - 3:25when you see crystal meth on the street,
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3:25 - 3:27if you add police presence,
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3:27 - 3:30you can curb the otherwise inevitable spate
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3:30 - 3:33of assaults and robberies that would happen.
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3:33 - 3:35In fact, the year after
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3:35 - 3:37the NYPD put CompStat in place,
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3:37 - 3:40the murder rate fell 60 percent.
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3:40 - 3:45So think about the data from a crisis text line.
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3:45 - 3:48There is no census on bullying and dating abuse
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3:48 - 3:51and eating disorders and cutting and rape --
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3:51 - 3:53no census.
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3:53 - 3:55Maybe there's some studies, some longitudinal studies,
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3:55 - 3:58that cost lots of money and took lots of time.
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3:58 - 4:00Or maybe there's some anecdotal evidence.
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4:00 - 4:03Imagine having real time data
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4:03 - 4:05on every one of those issues.
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4:05 - 4:07You could inform legislation.
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4:07 - 4:08You could inform school policy.
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4:08 - 4:11You could say to a principal,
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4:11 - 4:13"You're having a problem every Thursday at three o'clock.
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4:13 - 4:15What's going on in your school?"
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4:15 - 4:18You could see the immediate impact of legislation
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4:18 - 4:20or a hateful speech that somebody gives in a school assembly
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4:20 - 4:24and see what happens as a result.
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4:24 - 4:25This is really, to me,
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4:25 - 4:29the power of texting and the power of data.
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4:29 - 4:31Because while people are talking about data,
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4:31 - 4:33making it possible for Facebook
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4:33 - 4:35to mine my friend from the third grade,
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4:35 - 4:38or Target to know when it's time for me to buy more diapers,
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4:38 - 4:41or some dude to build a better baseball team,
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4:41 - 4:46I'm actually really excited about the power of data and the power of texting
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4:46 - 4:48to help that kid go to school,
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4:48 - 4:50to help that girl stop cutting in the bathroom
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4:50 - 4:54and absolutely to help that girl whose father's raping her.
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4:54 - 4:57Thank you.
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4:57 - 5:02(Applause)
- Title:
- Texting that saves lives
- Speaker:
- Nancy Lublin
- Description:
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When Nancy Lublin started texting teenagers to help with her social advocacy organization, what she found was shocking -- they started texting back about their own problems, from bullying to depression to abuse. So she's setting up a text-only crisis line, and the results might be even more important than she expected.
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 05:24
Jenny Zurawell edited English subtitles for Texting that saves lives | ||
Jenny Zurawell edited English subtitles for Texting that saves lives | ||
K Bang accepted English subtitles for Texting that saves lives | ||
K Bang edited English subtitles for Texting that saves lives | ||
Victoria edited English subtitles for Texting that saves lives | ||
Jenny Zurawell approved English subtitles for Texting that saves lives | ||
Jenny Zurawell edited English subtitles for Texting that saves lives | ||
Morton Bast accepted English subtitles for Texting that saves lives |