May 12, 2021 In India today, dozens of phone numbers are available for people who are having a severe mental health emergency. Oftentimes, however, callers experience difficulty in getting connected with someone who will listen to them; sometimes the phone will just ring and ring. “People think that technology is the solution – that if you place technology somewhere, that’s going to do wonders,” said Aditya Vashistha, assistant professor in the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science. “People thought, ‘Hey, let’s just put up helplines’ and it’s going to solve the issues,” he said. “And that’s a mistake, because technology in and of itself can’t do things. It can only accentuate the existing capabilities, the existing infrastructure.”