Buddi App Strives to Improve Mental Health for College Students
Marist College Student Working to Revolutionize the Typical College Student Approach to Mental Health Through his Creation of the app, Buddi
Vincent Manna ‘23 knew that his ability to analyze and collect raw, factual data had untapped potential to help students improve their mental health. Manna quickly got to work and eventually built Buddi.
Buddi is a new app to help students address their mental health needs. Manna saw his peers struggling to find balance between their long list of daily tasks and their mental wellbeing as busy college students. He knew this stress needed to be addressed before their mental health took a toll.
“I realized this wasn't a struggle of my friends, but for a majority of college students at large,” Manna said.
Mental illness overwhelmingly affects college students as they adjust to their newfound independence in the fast-paced environment of college living. Similar to the negative spiral effect when an individual neglects their physical health, lack of mental health self-care has the same ability to bring down many other aspects of living.
As a marketing major and data analytics minor, Manna conducted research and sent out various surveys about mental health to the Marist community. The results were eye-opening when the data concluded that most college students do struggle with their mental wellbeing.
Manna couldn’t just sit back and watch the alarming statistics continually prove how poorly students were keeping up with their mental health. He decided Buddi was an innovative solution to use his research to better the lives of his peers by minimizing their struggles with mental health.
“It is a semi-anonymous social safe space exclusive to college students, where students can talk about their feelings and problems to a community that understands them,” Manna said.
The app will be available for free in the app store by the end of October. It will include a live text chat, allowing anyone to find a ‘Buddi’ when needed. Along with the empathy and support to be offered by semi-anonymous users within the app, writers will be available to provide guidance by combining the perspective of student-journalists and mental health field experts. The app will also recommend apps and programs geared towards helping students in various aspects of life.
“The most rewarding part is knowing that I made a positive change to someone’s life,” Manna said. “Helping one life is just as valuable as helping millions, which I hope it accomplishes.”