Finding Inner Peace on Innerworld

Alum’s Online Mental Health Platform Provides Empathetic Community for Thousands of Users

Noah Robinson ’14 credits a video game with saving his life.

The Potomac, Md., native realized he was gay at 13, yet was terrified by the thought of his family and friends finding out. That overwhelming shame and pressure of staying closeted for years pushed him into depression and suicidal thoughts, relieved only by the hours he spent every day on RuneScape, an online fantasy role-playing game.

As an anonymous, medieval warrior avatar joining others on spell-casting, monster-battling quests, he found a sense of community, leading him to eventually come out online. The acceptance there inspired him to do the same in the real world his senior year of high school, and his family soon similarly embraced him.

Now, the University of Maryland alum is helping others struggling with anxiety and depression use technology to improve their lives. Together with singer-songwriter and mental health advocate Jewel, he founded Innerworld, an online community offering 24/7 avatar peer support groups with trained guides for users grappling with a range of issues. Since it first became available to the public in 2022, it’s reached more than 100,000 users.

“Psychologists design games like RuneScape to have people escape reality,” Robinson said. “What if we could build environments that have them come back to reality more empowered than when they left it?”

The platform’s roots reach back to Robinson’s experience at UMD, where he studied psychology and worked in Professor Clara Hill’s psychotherapy lab. He also volunteered at Help Center, an undergraduate-run anonymous peer counseling and crisis intervention hotline. At the end of his senior year, his fellow volunteers voted him “most likely to create an app that changes the world.”

Photos provided by Noah Robinson

Published on Thu, Oct 31, 2024 - 1:34PM