Design and evaluation of a technological solution to improve well-being among college students

Abstract

College students face a lot of stress during their time at college (Choi, 2020b). This situation has been exacerbated after the pandemic (COVID-19) (von Keyserlingk et al., 2022). According to recent reports, 1 in 5 students have had suicidal thoughts in the past month, and 63% of students mentioned that their emotional health is worse than before the pandemic (Foundation, 2020). The number of students who experience mental health problems during their studies is one in every three university students (Dekker et al., 2020). Mental health and well-being severely impact students’ experience at the university. For most students, the college years are also when they live alone for the first time (Choi, 2020a), and students living alone usually display less healthy eating behaviors (McLean et al., 2022). Yet, social interaction could be tied with better stress handling, which these students might lack (McLean et al., 2022). Motivated by this problem, we propose the “FreeMind” application, which provides a place for students to interact with their social groups (e.g., family and friends). In addition, FreeMind sends automated recommendations based on the user’s activity preferences and reported well-being to encourage healthy living and motivate change in behaviors. We carried out two studies to evaluate the system: a) a pilot study to evaluate the system’s usability and feasibility, and b) a second study to evaluate the system’s effectiveness in enhancing user well-being in a social setting. Over 70% of participants in the pilot study said they would like to use FreeMind outside the study, indicating substantial support for the concept. We found FreeMind to be simple to use and intuitive. Finally, the second study showed that users value social interactions since they could learn new things about their social circles. The recommendations prompted participants to seek more information on self-care and well-being.