Issue 3 | Week of May 13, 2026
Each week, we scan the latest news at the intersection of technology and mental health — then connect it back to what’s covered in Connected Care: A Practical Guide to Technology for Serious Mental Illness. Our goal: help you stay current without having to sort through it all yourself.
This week: the evidence for digital mental health tools keeps getting stronger — but so does the question of whether we’re building technology that actually serves people, or just technology that’s easier to deploy.
📱 The App Worked Better Than the Appointment Source: Nature Human Behaviour / Penn State & WashU (May 7)
A rigorous, peer-reviewed study of more than 6,200 college students just produced one of the strongest results in digital mental health research to date. Students offered a CBT-based smartphone app with text coaching were significantly more likely to actually use it — service uptake was seven times greater for students assigned to the digital intervention than to on-campus clinic referrals. More striking still: students offered the app reported fewer symptoms at six weeks, six months, and two years later, and were more likely to be free of any mental health disorder altogether. PubMed CentralHarvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
What’s new: This isn’t a small pilot. It’s a randomized controlled trial published in Nature Human Behaviour — among the most credible study designs in the field. The results held across disadvantaged students and those with the greatest barriers to care.
In Connected Care: Chapter 3 covers evidence-based digital therapeutics and the question of what “evidence-based” actually means. This study raises the bar for that conversation. The access advantage is the key finding: nearly 75% of students offered the app used it at least once, compared to only 30% of students referred to campus services who received any treatment in the following six months. For families navigating a system where the next appointment is weeks away, that gap is not abstract — it’s the difference between getting help and waiting. Google Scholar
🤔 What If We Built Technology for People Instead of Profit? Source: Psychology Today (May 11)
A thoughtful piece in Psychology Today this week asks a question the mental health technology field rarely pauses to consider: what if the goal of future technology was human well-being, not just efficiency? The piece challenges developers, clinicians, and policymakers to ask not just “can this be automated?” but “should it be?” — and what happens to dignity and meaning when we hand over care to machines.
What’s new: The question itself isn’t new. But the fact that it’s being asked loudly in mainstream outlets — not just academic journals — signals that the cultural conversation around technology and mental health is maturing. People are starting to push back on the assumption that more technology is always better.
In Connected Care: This is the tension the book navigates throughout, most directly in Chapters 5 and 11. Technology can expand access, reduce stigma, and catch warning signs earlier than any human could. It can also replace human connection with something that looks like care but isn’t. The book’s position is the same as the question this piece is asking: the tool matters less than the intention behind it and the humanity around it.
🏆 A Safety-First AI Mental Health Platform Wins the Webby Source: Business Wire (May 12)
Flourish Science, an evidence-based AI mental health platform built around safety and clinical rigor, took home a Webby Award this week — one of the internet’s most recognized honors for digital excellence. The recognition follows several other 2026 honors for the platform, including a Technology for Human Flourishing award.
What’s new: Awards aren’t evidence. But in a field flooded with AI mental health tools that move fast and cut corners, a platform winning recognition specifically for safety-first design is worth noting. It suggests the industry is beginning to reward the right things.
In Connected Care: Chapter 5 makes the case that the most important question to ask about any AI mental health tool isn’t how sophisticated it is, but how it was built and for whom. Flourish Science’s recognition is a small but meaningful signal that the field is starting to answer that question in the right direction.
Connected Care Weekly | Nicole Drapeau Gillen | https://www.resourcesforsmi.com
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