Chat Anxiety?

Q. Were you anxious the first time you hit "connect now"? if yes, on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being very anxious, where were you?

A. About a 6. I had my own anxiety, but I also have a really hard time opening up to somebody. It was my first time into the community so I wasn't sure what to expect.

A. Were you also anxious the second time? If yes, where were you on that same scale of 1-10?

A. N/A. Didn't personally like the experience I had with a listener and realized that I wanted to be the person that lives up to members/guests expectations and decided to become a listener.

Q. Can you identify what thoughts or fears you had that may have been causing you anxiety?

A. Wasn't sure what to expect,This person is going to be so bored, I feel bad dumping my issues on them, nothing makes sense to me, how am I going to explain my thoughts to this poor person, what if they can't relate, what if I scare them.

Q. What can we do to address this anxiety beforehand so people feel safer chatting with a listener?

A. I really like the idea of having transcripts from a mock chat, even as part of advertisement or welcoming into the site, just so that members have an idea of what they're getting into and not to be scared. Otherwise, it's sort of up to the person to decide they're ready to chat and sometimes people just aren't ready.

Seeing all these chats about how they usually were nervous because they did not know how it works. seieing these makes me feel like we, as listeners, need to help members who may not understand how the site works quiet yet. I always ask if they need any help, and i set boundaries before hand so they do not question what to say. I feel a lot more listeners need to read the forum.

Nothing is given, every person is unique in their own levels and us listeners cannot know without assuming and we need to ask these questions.

Disclaimer: I haven't read any of the previous posts, so what I say might be redundant.

I don't have chat anxiety but to combat the chat anxiety users may have, I have two suggestions...

ONE: Have a series of introductory videos, each of which are concise. The following should be a part of the series...Welcome to 7Cups, Chat 101, Forums 101 and Chat Anxiety (these are just what I thought of off of the top of my head).

Chat Anxiety [video content]- Reassure them that this is confidential, that the listeners are trained but not professional therapists (I would further explain this nuance and what it means). I would go into the the neurophysiological benefits of these chats. Also explain that just like with therapists, they may not find the right listener on the first try. But once they do, they will experience why 7Cups can be so instrumental to their mental health progress.

TWO: It takes waaaay too long to connect with a new listener. While Noni (the chat bot) was a good first attempt at solving this, it's unfortunately just a band-aid and not a true solution to the problem. You need to figure out a way to make these new chat connections happen instantly. By not making these new chat connections instantaneous, you provide more than enough time for those with chat anxiety to second guess if they should do this and logout. What's worse, I think the lag can increase their anxiety. After making these new chat connections happen instantly, I think the Noni survey should be optional. I think you should keep is an option, because this can be a useful survey for the listeners. And, it may help the user's anxiety. However, if one opts not to take the Noni survey, the user should still be instantly connected with a listener. And if they do choose to take the Noni survey, again they should instantly be connected with a listener after they submit it.

I hope what I said is not only germane to this thread, but helpful (:

1. Were you anxious the first time you hit "connect now"? if yes, on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being very anxious, where were you? Yes, probably like a 7. 2. Were you also anxious the second time? If yes, where were you on that same scale of 1-10? Not only the second time, but every time that followed if I was talking to someone new. Around 6. 3. Can you identify what thoughts or fears you had that may have been causing you anxiety? Will they be friendly? Will they expect me to awkwardly dump my crap in the first message or will they help ease me into a conversation? Will they actually listen and provide thoughtful input or prompt the right questions or will they assume they know what my "real issue" is and push their answers to life's problems? Will a good listener remember our last conversation? 4. What can we do to address this anxiety beforehand so people feel safer chatting with a listener Not sure.

I love the calming words that come up when waiting for a listener, I really think this makes a difference!

It is brilliant for calming them down about what they are going to talk about, but maybe not talking about it. I feel like some good things to add would be like 'your listener is devoted to hearing your thoughts,' 'Your listener is there for you,' 'Dont worry about what your going to say, our trained listeners understand'

As for me, I was worried about anonymity. I know the chances are very low but I was going to talk about my own personal problems and I did not want to be identified.

Instead of using words as a channel to convey the message, we can do that through a picture?

While the colors in picture the welcome page are relaxing, I personally find them a bit depressing. I suggest a picture of two people sitting to the same table and completely focusing on the conversation they're having. instead of showing the physical details of those two persons (like face and clothes) we can show silhouettes, it doesn't have to be a real life picture, even a professional cartoon picture like that can do the job, Silhouettes will enforce the idea of anonymity, and the whole picture can give a better idea of what to expect from this conversation (it's two friends sitting to a table, not a therapist-client siting on chairs, no doctors sitting behind their desks).. And yes, on this table there should be cups of tea :)

1. Were you anxious the first time you hit "connect now"? if yes, on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being very anxious, where were you?

7

2. Were you also anxious the second time? If yes, where were you on that same scale of 1-10?

5

3. Can you identify what thoughts or fears you had that may have been causing you anxiety?

First reason would be because you're not really sure what to expect. And it's just overall nerve wracking to speak to someone about your problems and then coming around again I didn't know if I was going to get the same person from before, or a new person, is it possible to be over sharing over using the application? Mostly more of the unknown.

4. What can we do to address this anxiety beforehand so people feel safer chatting with a listener?

I think knowing something about your listener before hand might help. I know some people have said they would like to know male or female, and age which I do too sometimes, but I also think it's be nice if they could just type a quick bio about themselves that'll just pop up before hand. Nothing long or drawn out just simple like: Hi call me_name/nickname_, I'm _age_ I'm also _new to this/I do this all the time_, I've been threw situations like _A,B,C_/ or I love to listen to topics like _A,B,C_. I'm ready to listen to anything.

Just to clear up some of that unknown and it gets the conversation started.

I dont know about evertthing else, but there really needs to be a language selection option, as a listener from Iran, many of my personal reqestes want to speak in persian, and I dont know which language I should use to start the conversation. because some of them dont know proper english, thanks

I think a lot of what causes the trepidation is the fear of the unknown. The listener is supposed to a complete stranger and in many ways that is perfect for this service but It seems like when picking a listener we all seem very cookie cutter. Maybe adding more advanced options to our porfiles or being to narrow searches somehow could seem less like jumping into the cold pool for the first time.