Suppot Groups II

I wrote about the move of a depression support group to a social networking Website. And the owner explained the reasons for the move from the standalone forum to the networking Website, specifically to increase membership and reduce the work. She is a very busy person and running her own Website and forum was time-consuming for the time available. I can't argue with that.

What I can argue though is the idea that a person automatically assumes a decision and subsequent action is better because they feel or think it will make it better. Let's be clear there. Intention itself doesn't make any decision better and the decision and subsequent action good and right, only different.

As the old saying goes, a major change isn't always the optimium, let alone the best solution. It only makes it better for the person making the decision, or so they hope. In this case, it helped to reduce the work with the forum by moving all the operation and most of the management to the social networking company. She only needs to the address what options are in choices for the presentation, management, etc. of the Website and forum.

It could be argued that in the long run her time won't be that much less. First, she had to learn their system for the features she wanted and then set them up. This is and was no different than the other forum, only she doesn't operate and manage the application of the Website and forum. That's a savings of time, except it puts that work on the company's timetable to fit their work needs.

What it did reduce is that the membership process is now under the social networking company and their Website and not her. This provides her considerably more users and anyone on the Website can join the forum, she can't stop them, even though they may join for social networking than depression. There are questions that haven't been answered yet.

First, will those who felt that had some degree of privacy - which they didn't as the old forum was fully readable by the public and search engines - but more so a sense of shared experience. People only joined the group if they had some measure of depression or knew some with some measure of depression. That is now gone.

Second, will expanding the membership dilute the the content of the forum. It's reasonable to assume few people will join for just socializing, but as any forum has experienced, it invites the number of people you least need or want on them, people who have no understanding of depression and don't mind expressing less than supportive and positive views about depressed people. Or worse.

Third, it does open up the members of the old forum to the wider audience of services and people who use the user information on social networking Website for other purposes, like phishing or hacking (eg. Yahoo). Having to be a member of the larger social network would prompt some to provide less information than they did before, making it harder for others to really understand who they are.

Fourth, the organization of this one is entirely different than the old one. Many of the topics for specific aspects of depression are either lost of merged into one. While maybe a good thing for the casual user, not good for those with specific conditions or situations. Their measure of identity was lost, unless of course they want to express it to wider, less focused group.

In the end, the choice to move the forum has both advantages and disadvantages for the owner and the users. Everything has a price, but to me, socializing depression isn't usually a good thing. It can help some but it can also drive more away from support and help they truly need and want. And there are good examples, such as suicide.

Suppose the suicide telephone support and help folks decided to move their service to a general psychology help line, like when you call and get a prerecorded message with the list of options and hear, "Press 2 if you have thoughts of suicide." And then, "Please hold for the next available help person."

What would you do then? Like duh. Yeah, extreme example, but it not any different than someone standing up in a support group meeting to express their deepest personal problems or standing up in a theater full of people to express those same problems. Where would you think they will get more and better help?

Yes, I'm still a member of both the social networking Website and this forum, but outside of providing the minimum information, I only go there occasionally to find nothing has changed from what I expected. A little bit of everything, good, bad and indifferent. Just like any social networking Website and forums, but certainly not a dedicated depression forum.