Editor’s Note: This article is purely satirical and fictitious. All attributions in this article are not genuine, and this story should be read in the context of pure entertainment only.
The tech industry has gained notoriety for exacerbating the rates of mental health illnesses among children and teenagers. Responding to this trend, Product Design students Trandor Wilson ’24 and Connor Blouse ’26 say, “Fight fire with fire.” These plucky entrepreneurs are doing their part with the release of Sharotonin, a free-to-play mobile game where 5 to 18-year-olds with depression can reach their dopamine minimum via hourly, AI-generated minigames and then share their new serotonin highscores with friends.
“Growing up in the Bay Area, I realized that the solution to my collapsing mental health was to gamify it,” Wilson explained in an interview with The Daily. “Life became a series of dopamine challenges that I needed to complete, unless I wanted my Serotonin Streak to expire. Once it was translated into terms I could understand, mental health care finally made sense to me.”
A virtual tour led by Sharotonin’s animal mascot, Foxy Tocin, introduces the user to the core features of the app. First, the user submits a summary of their mental health problems, a face scan of them frowning and all of their medical records to the app’s headquarters in Fremont. After about a month, the app assigns the user an AI-generated minigame challenge, tailored to their unique mental profile.
For instance, Jake Meinert, a 18-year-old with depression, receives hourly notifications to tap on a button called “Happiness” as quickly as possible for 60 seconds. Olivia Wang, a 12-year-old user with OCD, must tap on a button called “Calmness” as quickly as possible for 60 seconds. By completing these minigames, players accrue “Serotonin Points,” which automatically place them on a leaderboard comparing their mental health with the rest of the world’s.
“Via the leaderboard, users are empowered to compete for the best mental health,” Blouse said. “We’re turning beating depression into the world’s newest form of addiction!”
Users who wish to increase the level of personalization in the minigames can collect special “Diagnosis Packs” (only available as in-app purchases), which expand the pool of mental health diagnoses that the app classifies for. Diagnoses are ranked from common to legendary based on their rarity in psychiatric journals.
“Oh cool, I got penis envy!” one user said, describing a rare diagnosis in the game.
Since the initial success of the game, the developers have made significant expansions to the app’s social component, most recently the development of a fully functional social media service. On this “all-positive, good-vibes-only platform,” users are encouraged to describe in meticulous detail their mental health profile through community forums, daily reports on their lives or videos of them dancing to copyrighted music. “Sharotonin Streaks,” which end when the user stops generating content, ensure a steady stream of posts onto the platform. To further promote engagement, developers submit weekly polls with questions like, “Are you an 8- to 15-year-old girl with an eating disorder and no previous exposure to asbestos?” or “Do you have a friend who hasn’t tried Prozac yet?”
Not all are satisfied with Sharotonin’s foray into social media, however. “Outside of some good Sonic Youth recs, I really haven’t felt any sense of community here,” one user complained. “But the good news is that, ever since I downloaded Sharotonin, I’ve got a lot of experimental pharmaceuticals mailed to my door.”
In an investor meeting, Sharotonin co-creators Wilson and Blouse announced that the app has already reached over 3 million users — all children — and promised “to make child therapy completely obsolete within five years.” Blouse was reported to have said, “TikTok has taught us that every single human behavior can be converted into a token of engagement. Why not depression? Let social disengagement be the new engagement!”