Nikki Farrington, Chelsey Hood ENC 3331 4/19/2013 Letters of Understanding: A Plan of Action Depression in a college setting can

stem from many aspects of college itself. It can be a result of homesickness, loneliness, and financial struggles, as well as disappointment in personal academic performance. Depression can be mixed with anxiety, which makes it even worse. In fact, in one year 30% of college students reported feeling so depressed that it was difficult to function (NIMH, 2). Depression can be situational or hereditary. While college may or may not have an impact on a person who suffers from hereditary depression, it has the potential to do so. Depression is not something which can be simply cured. Instead, it must be reduced with medication and counseling or psychiatry. Many problems with psychiatry result from the difficulty of classifying a student as having one specific form of depression. There are several forms of depression which overlap and may be difficult to diagnose on the first try. This can lead to frustration and even deeper hopelessness. Many times doctors make a diagnosis based on a previous case. This heuristic approach does not always work because not every case is exactly like its precedent and sometimes a current case may need to be differentiated from its predecessor. When a doctor attempts to connect with a patient, they are attempting to create identification between themselves and their patient. Sometimes this fails when the doctor cannot successfully relate, and they in turn create a division between themselves and their patient. This is where Letters of Understanding comes in as a supplement to fill the gap of division. It will act as a pen pal program for people, mainly UCF students, with any type of depression from manic depression to being bi-polar. Our aim

with a website is to make sure we can reach as many people as possible, at any time of the day, whenever they feel the need. We are not attempting to act as psychiatrists or counselors, or to discount their services in any way. In fact, we would like to add a tab that is specifically for those seeking professional help. The purpose of this site is simply to give people who suffer from depression and similar disorders a place to talk. Loneliness is a key cause of depression, so through this site we hope to alleviate it and let people see that they are not alone in their disorder. Many resources designed to help with depression may not have the maximum efficiency because they are not operating at the right level of intimacy. This is why we are setting up our website to have instant messaging and a message board for a less personal touch, as well as an email buddy system for a more personal approach to the problem. There are some legal concerns which must be addressed in Letters of Understanding. Our website would have to have a Terms of Use contract to ensure that we are not liable for whatever may happen as a result of the pen pal system. We will also need to have contact with doctors who can ensure that this website remains helpful to those who suffer from depression, and that it is not just making it worse. We will have to use anonymity in the process by requesting users create an e mail specifically for Letters of Understanding as well as not using their real name or giving out any personal information. This will hopefully help to decrease the possibility for cyber bullying. When looking at how we plan on setting up Letters of Understanding, there are a few main aspects. We want to avoid dark, depressing colors like blues, greens, and purples. Although these are sometimes considered calming, having such dark colors as the main base would dampen the mood, as with Tumblr or Facebook. With a lighter, warmer color like light browns and pale greens, users will be less likely to feel as sad as they would if they were looking at a dreary color scheme. Moving on to how people will communicate, our instant messaging feature

will act much like the one found on Facebook or even on the classic AIM. At the bottom of the page, after youve signed in, youll be able to see your buddies online and who is ready and willing to talk at that point. A feature like mood emoji, or picture characters also known as emoticons, might be beneficial in this case, so that people will be able to distinguish who is feeling what and which person really needs someone to talk to. A tab with advice from a doctor, called The Doctors Note, would be added much later in the game, possibly even as far back as a few years. Here is where we bring in certified doctors who know how to diagnose depression and who are certified in speaking about what causes it and how to tell if you may or may not have it. Something we would like to see in this section is the ability to schedule a conference call with a doctor. This way, if one of the members of Letters of Understanding wants to seek a certified physicians help, but cant afford it, this might be a way to be able to speak to someone face to face or even phone to phone, rather than through emails. Of course, they wouldnt be able to provide prescriptions, but at least the user would have access to a doctor if they felt it was fit. It may be a costly addition, which is why it would have to be added after the website gains acknowledgment and velocity. Hand in hand with the doctors tab, the inclusion of a personal advice tab, or even a personal experience tab, will also be on the site. Here is where members with any type of depression can log in and tell their success stories or ever offer little tidbits of advice on how to get through a particularly rough day. Unfortunately, this tab can cause complications. We both understand that there are people across the internet that like to harass, otherwise known as troll, people with problems who feel like they just cant keep going. These posts will be monitored by the administrators and each post must be approved by one of them before they are allowed to be published for the public eye. In addition, a script will be running throughout the

entire website that will put aim on words and phrases like kill yourself and suicide in addition to derogatory names which can be harmful to the user. With this program, it will alert our system and flag the post as harmful. Therefore, we will be able to go in quickly and delete the post. If the post managed to reach any of our members, we can send an email to them and make sure that theyre okay and in a stable condition. From there, we look into personal pages. Letters of Understanding is not a website that requires a log in. It is a free, open source, for people to come and read through message boards and tabs. Of course, if they do want to be able to post, talk to doctors, or use any of our other features, they must be able to create an account using a username and password. Things such as names, personal emails, age, and location will not be given access to the public. We want to keep our organization as anonymous as possible, but also keep it friendly and personal. With a personal account, you will be given access to many different features. One that we would like to include would be much like a Facebook newsfeed or profile. No one would be allowed to use a picture, so you dont know what the other person looks like. However, you will be able to give out information such as: disorder, email address (not a personal one, one set up either through Letters of Understanding or through a second host), and a place that you can post about how you feel and what you would like to discuss. This site does not allow you to become up close and personal with the member you plan on talking to. This is left up to the member and how much information they would like to disclose. Our choice in a website was based on Guraks four traits of online communication: speed, reach, anonymity, and interactivity. These four things are essential to keeping a website such as ours up and running while establishing a fan base and watching it grow. With the aspect of speed, this would help our website grow larger and larger, creating a more respected community.

The speed of the internet will allow for easy rhetorical velocity. Through links and posts about our website, we will not just be creating our message, but we will watch our message be recreated and grow into something much more powerful. We want Letters of Understanding to grow monumentally, and quickly. Reach plays a large aspect in our application of Guraks methods, in a way that they go hand in hand. Reach is essentially how far it gets out. Initially, we want to open Letters of Understanding to only UCF students, but as it grows we want to let it expand naturally to different colleges in America and then eventually, around the world. Through interactivity and anonymity, users will be able to talk to one another without disclosing any personal information. Through this website, users will see that they are not alone and that there are people around them who want to help. Keeping our website anonymous is very important in the success of Letters of Understanding. If we dont, students could start to feel the pressures of cyber bullying and stalking, even when theyve signed up to feel safe and comfortable. We want them to be able to identify with one another, and to feel comfortable talking about emotions that they may not be able to tell a doctor or even their friends and family. If we failed to get members to identify with one another and the website, Letters of Understanding would be of no use, since its purpose is to fill the gap that exists when people do not want to express their feelings. This is why anonymity and interactivity are so crucial to the process, because if we fail to identify with our users, than we divide ourselves from them, leaving them just as lonely as they were before logging on. As far as promoting our website, weve come up with a few ideas to help us initially get the word out to the UCF student body. Our first idea is simply handing out flyers. Theyre easy to make, easy to print, and even easier to distribute. All around campus we have places that have bulletin boards where we can post flyers in the same colors that are used on our website. In

addition to that, passing them out at free speech areas is also a big opportunity. Even if many people throw them away, it might be able to help that one person who has been looking for a way to find some help, and thats what were really all about. In addition to this, setting up a booth in front of the Student Union is also a very possible way to promote Letters of Understanding. We could give out free stuff (who doesnt like free stuff) with our website on it, which is likely to drag in quite a few of the people who tend to wander through the area at all times of the day. On these free items, we could have links to various social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pintrest, and Instagram. That way, people can stay involved with not only our website, but also with the campus and the various things that go on around it. Our next promotion technique is to host awareness events. For these, wed like to promote awareness and raise money to donate to related charities that help people who suffer from depression. There are other charities out there that do similar things and they bring in bands that put on live shows. This is one more possibility that might help outsource our website. To conclude, we have a lot of big ideas for this project and we both believe that with support and determination, we can make this website a real possibility and a real success.