Practicum 6: Berenson, Online Support Groups

Practicum 6:

In addition to providing confidential and timely advice and comfort to numerous students, SPILL is playing a large role in transforming the way universities assist their students and better allot funding. According to studies only about fifteen to twenty percent of students feel comfortable enough to seek out help related to the kind of ultra personal issues SPILL focuses on with a counselor. It is a gross misrepresentation of the mental health of the student body for schools to get their data from such a small group. “82% of SPILL's users indicated embarrassment or fear as the number one factor that had prevented them from utilizing campus counseling facilities in the past,” states the SPlLL Website (www.spillnow.com).  Schools that utilize SPILL can leverage the data the service provides for student retention, risk mitigation, suicide prevention thus developing more realistic recommendations for services universities should consider offering their students. SPILL as a service is a much more representative way to gather data about what students are really concerned about. Going beyond the potentials of a website like iMedix, SPILL targets a niche audience and becomes a model of service based analytics used to power recommendations for institutions like large universities.  SPILL, as an online support group and beyond, is an excellent example of value created though analysis of aggregate social application user data. Bellow is a look at the University of Wisconsin- Madison’s Badger SPILL homepage.

I think there is something to be said about each University's specific SPILL page. All students with a university email address can participate in the program though SPILL's national website (www.spillnow.com) but only students with an @wisc.edu email can seek advice from the Badger SPILL site. Having a more personalized, university specific page creates a heightened sense of intimacy which may be appealing to some students. Fellow Badgers can relate more closely to the problems another Badger may be having and could potentially give better advice. The SPILL student supporter will be familiar with the terminology of the area, where another student on another campus may not know what the 'spiller' was referring to.
On the flip side of this, even if an student's campus does have a specific SPILL page they be less inclined to use it because they may feel like it is too close to home and even though they remain anonymous, identified only by their email address, talking to someone who goes to their school may still seem to embarrassing. Not that my question was really that embarrassing but I did hesitate for a second because SPILL makes you provide your university email address when submitting spills to verify you are in fact a student, however, most university email address are comprised of the students name. For instance, my email, rberenson@wisc.edu, reveals my first initial and full last name. The complete cloak of anonymity provided by the national SPILL page in this case could seem much more appealing. iMedix allows you to use any email to register which makes it slightly more anonymous to a degree, however, because anyone, not just student, can use the site there is not as much security or guarantee of a peer answer. 


This is a video I found that shows how easy and helpful it can be to 'spill.'