The Internet as Saviour and Destructor: Supporting Mental Health through the Lens of My Heart and Other Black Holes

Abstract

In mental health advocacy, the internet plays an important and dual role because it can act both as a platform for support and potential harm. The novel My Heart and Other Black Holes by Jasmine Warga captures this duality of media through its story. The protagonists of the novel, Aysel and Roman, meet each other through an online suicide forum, which serves both as a source of healing and distress. This paper investigates the novel in light of how the internet helps and supports people to feel connected with others and, simultaneously, how it encourages harmful behaviours among them. By including knowledge from contemporary studies in digital and mental health, the paper highlights how digital media can increase the danger and solutions to mental health problems. Furthermore, this study contributes to the understanding of how important and responsible platform design and digital literacy should be to tackle the problems and make online environments safer.