In line with World Mental Health Awareness Day, Snapchat has also launched its own initiative to prevent and address prevailing mental health issues. Called ‘Club Unity’, Snapchat partnered up with various celebrities to help raise awareness about the various concerns associated with mental health.
The thrust behind the initiative can be derived from one of Snapchat’s Tweets. From the introduction, the initiative essentially brings together celebrities from various backgrounds and cultures and has them “opening up” or sharing their struggles with mental health. The end goal is to encourage users to take personal steps towards overcoming their mental health challenges.
The project’s initial focus is geared towards increasing support for the more vulnerable minorities, such as those belonging to BIPOC and the LGBTQ+ Youth. Just after the recent revelations of the Facebook Files Expose, Snapchat could have aligned the project to not foster the birth of another Instagram incident.
As Snapchat snaps:
“As part of our inaugural year of Club Unity, we have begun amulti-year partnership with Active Minds, a mental health organization for students and young adults with a network of more than 800 campus chapters at colleges, universities, and high schools nationwide. Our partnership will support the expansion of Active Minds chapters at community colleges, HBCUs, and high-schools with the goal of reaching a larger number of BIPOC and LGBTQ+ students.”
Similar to how Facebook announced its Community Summit 2021, Snapchat has also announced its first-ever ‘Club Unity Summit’. Attendees will have the opportunity to be officially certified by Active Minds in “Validate, Appreciate, Refer”, all for the betterment of struggling friends.
“Starting today, you can access a new suite of resources in Here For You, our in-app mental health resource hub that address ways to start tough conversations with friends, such as active listening tips, and daily affirmations. These resources are promoted to Snapchatters when they search common mental health terms like anxiety, depression, and stress on Snapchat, and are designed to be easily shared with close friends and family to help support one another through the highs and lows.”
The Wrap
The growing reliance on social networks to maintain connections throughout the pandemic has highlighted the importance of communication in maintaining and alleviating the effects of various kinds of mental health. Where restriction and lockdowns physically prevent the company of friends and other relatives, the proximal gap is addressed by social media, introducing those plagued with mental health issues to a wider network of people who are experiencing the same but offer solutions. Considering that Snapchat accounts for about 90% of US users aged 12-24, this particular statistic helps put things to scale. Younger people are more vulnerable online, and if other platforms do what Snapchat and Pinterest have done, the detrimental effects of overexposure to social media elements can be countered.
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