Apr 16, 2020
Dr. Danielle Ramo, from HopeLab
joined me this week to talk about the launch of the Nod app. Nod
was built by HopeLab in collaboration with Grit Digital Health.
Nod’s mission is to reduce loneliness in young people and to
prevent adverse effects during the COVID-19 crisis and
beyond.
Danielle is a clinical psychologist
and the Senior Director of Research at HopeLab, which is a
non-profit social innovation lab based in San Francisco creating
behavior change tech to help teens and young adults live happier,
healthier lives. Danielle has worked extensively on projects
ranging from addressing loneliness among college students, teen
vaping, mental health of young parents, young people with cancer,
and a multitude of others.
She is also an Adjunct Associate Professor of Psychiatry at UC San
Francisco, leading a research program at the intersection of
substance use and digital mental health. She has published over 80
peer-reviewed publications and publications on drug use and mental
health.
More on the Nod
app: Download in Apple and
Google Play stores,
Nod one pager, Press Release on Launch of Nod
Connect with Danielle and
her work: LinkedIn, Danielle’s
website,
Danielle’s recent article in Thrive Global on ways
college students can deal with loneliness during the COVID
pandemic
HERE ARE SOME OF THE THINGS
WE TALKED ABOUT:
- Dr. Danielle Ramo joins us to talk
about the latest amazing solution developed by HopeLab that
helps college aged youth deal with loneliness. The app is
called Nod and can be found in the Apple app store and in the
Google Play store.
- Danielle explains a bit about what
HopeLab
is. HopeLab, founded by Pam
Omidyar, is a social innovation non-profit that
creates behavior change tech to support adolescent health and
wellbeing. They have created everything
from video games, to chat bots, and apps that support physical and
mental health as well as behavior change among young people.
- We talked about a
recent CIGNA survey that found 79% of
the GenZ population recently admitted to experiencing loneliness.
We talked about why young people are struggling with isolation and
loneliness.
- HopeLab conducted a survey of
1,400 young people between ages 14-22 in 2018. The survey focused
on the relationship between technology use, social media use, and
experience with loneliness. They found that there was no
relationship between extent of social media use, and experiences of
loneliness, depression, anxiety, or other negative mental health
issues. They did find that there was a difference in how
young people used social media based on their mental health
patterns.
- What is
Nod?
HopeLab and Grit Digital
Health worked together to co-create an app called Nod.
Nod addresses loneliness among college-aged young people who can
often be overwhelmed by the changes they experience in their
environment and in how social connections are made when they get to
college. College is a risky time in a young person’s life and
better interventions are needed. This was the motivation for
creating Nod.
- How does
Nod work?
Nod is an app that allows young
people to notice and address misconceptions they had about making
social connections. Friendships do not come easy, however, there is
this expectation for many young people entering college that these
new friendships should come easy. Nod works to help young people
realize this is not always the case and that we all must work hard
to make real social connections and that it’s a skill we can work
to improve.
Two main features:
- Challenges –
These are actions Nod encourages a young person to take. These
challenges can be anything from texting a friend to let them know
you’re thinking of them to things like joining a club or reaching
out to someone on campus for a specific social reason. Nod wants young people to
engage in these challenges in order to make more connections and to
learn from their efforts to do so.
- Reflections –
Challenges can go well or can go poorly. Nod wants to support
people to enjoy feeling good after a challenge goes
well. At the same
time, many challenges will not end successfully, and Nod wants to
support young people when a challenge does not go their way. They
want young people to learn not to blame themselves or blow things
out of proportion.
Reflections support people not taking on negative emotions in an
unhealthy way.
- How much
does it cost?
The Nod app is free for all college
students right now. The app will remain free while the shelter in
place order is in effect and while we are practicing social
distancing.
- HopeLab would love to hear
from students who use Nod during this time and hear what feedback
they have.
- We also talked about the
opportunity that exists to build mental health solutions
around the younger population and specifically the college
population. Colleges are not equipped to provide mental
health resources to all students. There are a lot of opportunities
for technology to be leveraged to build solutions that provide
resources to students and provide care to students where the
college’s own resources are maxed out. These are also environments
where cost and scalability must be considered because college
students and education systems typically do not have large
budgets.
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Hays here: Stephen Hays Personal
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