7 Cups: Anxiety & Stress Chat

Although on-demand access to volunteer listeners may help teens who are struggling with mental health challenges feel supported, limited professional presence and oversight makes it potentially risky. Sharing challenges that may be difficult to discuss with family and friends through an anonymous platform sounds appealing. There's a clear sense of community among the app's users and positive, motivating, and reassuring posts dominate most chats. Teens may find useful takeaways in other users' posts. So while the experience may be therapeutic for some, there's no way for families to ensure that teens in crisis or coping with social, emotional, and mental health issues are receiving appropriate messages from volunteer listeners and peers. There's a lack of trained therapists or medical professionals in the free version of the app, and teens themselves can become volunteer listeners, providing support to other struggling teens, after a fairly simple registration process. Although the site clearly states that it's not an adequate service for those considering suicide or self-harm, there's no way to filter the information that users exchange, other than flagging posts that contain inappropriate content. Some of the stories shared in the forums detail things such as physical abuse, succumbing to eating disorders, and relapsing into self-harm, which some users may find disturbing or too explicit. Teens coping with mental health issues may find the amount of information in the chat rooms and across the variety of communities to be overwhelming. The overall tone of 7 Cups: Anxiety & Stress Chat is supportive and positive and clearly promotes a sense of community, but the number of troubling posts and the lack of oversight may lead to a potentially damaging experience for some teens. If parents think their teen might benefit, it's best to also have in-person professional support and to check in around the teen's experience using the app.