Program warns of offensive words.
By Raif Karerat
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Trisha Prabhu, a 15-year-old Indian American, has tasked herself with solving the problem of cyber bullying.
In 2013, Prabhu heard about a young girl committing suicide over the simplest but most spiteful of insults, “You’re fat, you’re ugly, and nobody likes you, they say. You’re a loser — why don’t you kill yourself already,” read the statement, disclosed Scroll.in.
The tragedy led to the realization that cyber bullying was endemic and inspired Prabhu to affect positive change on the internet.
To that effect, she created ReThink, a software program that that screens messages on your phone or computer for offensive words and prompts a warning if it catches them, asking the user if they really want to send out something that could be construed as cyberbullying.
“I hypothesized that if adolescents (ages 12-18) were provided an alert mechanism that suggested them to re-think their decision if they expressed willingness to post a mean/hurtful message on social media, the number of mean/hurtful messages that adolescents will be willing to post would be lesser than adolescents that are not provided with such an alert mechanism,” wrote Prabhu when submitting her project outline for last year’s Google Science Fair, in which she was selected as a Global Finalist.
After 1,500 anonymous trials with teenagers ranging from ages 12 to 18, she found that less than five percent of participants from the “Rethink” test group decided to post the abusive content.
Her software also won first prize at the PowerPitch Competition at 1871, Chicago’s technology and entrepreneurial hub, according to TEDxTeen.
Prior to her ReThink project, Trisha researched the brain’s role in the cognitive distraction that causes distracted driving. She won a Gold Medal Award from the Illinois Junior Academy of Science for her work. She is an advocate of STEM in education and believes that technology is the future of tomorrow. She has spoken at education and technology conferences in the Chicago area.
Prior to her ReThink project, Trisha researched the brain’s role in the cognitive distraction that causes distracted driving. She won a Gold Medal Award from the Illinois Junior Academy of Science for her work and is an advocate of STEM in education, being of the opinion “that technology is the future of tomorrow.”