Designing MeeToo
A Medium for Anonymous Social Support
Context: When I need help with a personal issue I am dealing with, I want to be able to talk to people without having them know who I am.
Problem: College campuses can be a stressful environment for students dealing with many things like academic pressure, social pressure, and social stigma. It’s often not so easy to ask for help. These factors often cause a student’s state of depression or anxiety to escalate. In many extreme cases, students have even committed suicide because of the intense amount of stress they are dealing with.
Goal: Improve the state of student mental health by making it easier for people to get help.
Target Audience: College students, Campus Health Center Representatives
Interviews
To begin understanding the state of student mental health, I began by interviewing both students and campus mental health representatives. Here are some of the insights gained from those discussions:
- Students are under high amounts of academic and social pressure. Going to a campus therapist is often embarrassing and a private ordeal. People often don’t even tell their closest friends what they are dealing with.
- When students contact the Health Center, they are often asked “How suicidal are you feeling?”
- Campus Health centers are often dealing with so many students that they must prioritize who they speak to first. This results in scheduling appointments for students anywhere from 2–8 weeks after they contact the health center.
- During the 2–8 weeks, the issues that students are dealing with can often escalate.
Market Analysis Insights
- A tool that is often used to anonymous social support is Facebook Groups. Students will create a group like ‘Cornell Confessions’ and submit a post via a Google Form. The admin of the group will then take the submission and make a post on the group for others to comment on. However, students commented on this option and mentioned the following:
- The post content is no longer anonymous for anyone that comments on that post. This often prevents people from commenting.
- (Prior to Facebook Reactions) The only way someone could interact with the post was to like it, which does not translate well in many situations.
- Yik Yak is another mobile platform which allows anonymous communication. However, it also introduces the concept of rating comments. This could influence the way people comment in a manner that is not best for social support.
- Prior studies about stress and anxiety have mentioned that the verbal or written expression of ones problems has shown to have a positive effect on stress and anxiety.
Storyboards
Journey Mapping
