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Unit 15- Journal #9 Process Reflection

All steps of the creative problem solving process are necessary.  It is important to go through all the steps in order to come to a conclusion that is well thought out.  The solution should be a result of trial and error, counter arguments, multiple opinions and the product of questions such as how could this solution be improved? What is this solution lacking?

Acceptance, Analysis, Definition, Ideation, Selection, etc are all important to include in the process but how long you spend on each step should not be allocated equally.  In this class we had the same amount of time, one week, to spend on each step.  I believe as each step is equally important, some steps should require more time and thought.  For example, the first stage, acceptance should not take as long as some of the other steps regardless of how important it is to the process.  Acceptance is the stage you completely commit yourself to a cause, you have a passion you are committing to follow to the end.  Although this stage is as necessary as the other stages, such as ideation, these two should not take the same length of time.  Ideation is a step that requires more time to come up with several ideas, good and bad, in order to get your creative juices flowing and see all possible options.

There should be a stage added to the creative problem solving process based solely on feedback.  Feedback is a time to see if others will appreciate your solution or a time to bounce ideas off of others.  This is important to me because I feel having two brains is better than one.  Discussing your ideas with others is practice to see what you like about your idea as you explain it to others and see what is missing.  Getting others’ opinions is important to see how your solution will be perceived before it is final.  This could be as simple as calling a friend or putting together a group of random individuals to test your product and give feedback.

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Unit 14- Process Journal #8 Evaluation

Unfortunately this week I was sick.  I am grateful for my teammates Erika and Jake for really stepping up with the work load and keeping me in the loop.  This is an aspect of the creative process that is extremely important, being able to rely on your group when you cannot.  Jake used his skill set to create a website that perfectly summarized how we planned on the implementation of our solution.  He created a website where people, specifically teens, could get a short summary of the problem and our proposed solution.  The website is a place people can take a pledge to not book end their day with social media, see others who have also taken the pledge and allow the site visitors to share the site and spread the word.  Erika summarized our website and plan in a cohesive and helpful Google document.  Overall, the various phases of the creative problem throughout our project has been successful.  We were able to a lot a specific amount of time for each process of the creative problem solving process to ultimately come to a conclusion we think is well thought out and a solution we are proud to implement.

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Unit 14- Conceptualize it

View our prototype here: https://www.socialrestraint.club/

With Jake’s skillset, we decided to create a version of the website to conceptualize our idea. For this version, we created a simple one-page site with sections that represent content that would be more flushed out in a final version. We created a name - Social Restraint Club - and built out a few of the sections. Users will find out about our website through our PSAs, commercials, users sharing their pledge or our multimedia on social media, and events that we’ll attend to promote the organization (i.e. music festivals). Therefore, we want the site to be a hub of all of this content. There’s a place for them to pledge and see all of the users who have pledged to date. They can easily integrate this with their Facebook account and share our message on their pages. They can also explore the facts about how social media companies manipulates us and social media’s negative health impacts. Based on the in-class feedback, we also decided that we wanted to incorporate some positive reinforcement of social media, since we aren’t asking users to stop using social media but to use it less and more wisely. We would want the final version to incorporate some section of tips, tools, and resources for using social media more positively. The final section of the site is the Multimedia - this is where we’ll host our PSAs and commercials.

While our version is quickly made version, developing a website involves many processes and stakeholders. It involves wireframing, user personas, style guides, and multiple rounds of designs and iterations. For the final version, we’d want to include web developers, project managers and coordinators, designers, and marketers to help ensure that we are communicating our messages effectively to teens. For the web developers, they want to ensure that the site includes easy ways to share the pledge or our multimedia content on social media and that the site doesn’t have bugs. The designers want to ensure that we are keeping a consistent brand and image in the website, our multimedia, and branding. The marketers and communication professionals will help us ensure that the website is resonating  and reaching our target audience, teens. This can include tweaking language or suggesting events that we attend to get the word out.

We think this is a good start to show what this campaign could look like and help AdCouncil see our vision.

Things that need to get done:

Website

Scaffold a basic design into place.

Page Routing/Structure

Home

Pledge (Take Action)

About (The Facts)

Multimedia (The Vault)

SSL Cert for the domain

Heroku upgrade to allow for SSL

Facebook login

Facebook app

Facebook open graph action

Copy

Pledge

The Facts

Would be cool to make these sharable

https://apps.voxmedia.com/tools/meme/sbnation/

http://blog.apps.npr.org/lunchbox/

https://github.com/times/cardkit

Home Page Imagery

Flowchart

Stats

Copy

The Pledge (Take Action)

Join us in taking back your time, calling on social media companies to be more responsible, and using social media in a positive way.

Show shareable image that says:

Join Friend A, Friend B, and Friend C in spending less time on social media?

[Yes] [No]

The Facts

Fake accounts that purport to be real people—can produce as many as 1,000 social media posts a day.

Source: http://www.newsweek.com/trolls-bots-and-fake-news-dark-and-mysterious-world-social-media-manipulation-682155

Russian "troll farm" with close ties to the Kremlin spent around $100,000 on ads ahead of the 2016 US election and produced thousands of organic posts that spread across Facebook and Instagram

Source: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/mb37k4/twitter-facebook-google-bots-misinformation-changing-politics

Facebook takes advantage of your desire for instant gratification. Your brain receives a dopamine hit every time you see that red notification light up

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/brain-wise/201209/why-were-all-addicted-texts-twitter-and-google

Source: Kent C. Berridge and Terry E. Robinson, What is the role of dopamine in reward: hedonic impact, reward learning, or incentive salience?: Brain Research Reviews, 28, 1998. 309–369.

Our chronic sleep deprivation is linked to these devices being allowed in our sleep space

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/03/no-phone-in-bed_n_6022284.html

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/497S13a

Facebook capitalizes on your tendency to procrastinate by incorporating a news feed with an infinite scroll.

https://www.lifehack.org/233325/5-psychological-reasons-you-are-addicted-facebook-and-5-ways-break-the-habit

Using Social Media Positively Copy:

(Jake, can you just make this a section on the Facts page?)

Despite its negative impacts, there are many positive impacts of social media. We aren’t advocating to completely stop using social media, but be aware of its manipulation, negative impacts on our health, and learn how to have a better relationship with it.

Positive facts:

71% say social media has a positive impact on friendships

61% say social mediaa has a positive impact on self confidence

66% say social media makes it easy to connect with people

Source: https://www.campaignlive.com/article/gen-z-quitting-social-media-droves-makes-unhappy-study-finds/1459007

https://genz.hhcc.com/hubfs/Gen%20Z%20-%20The%20Social%20Generation%20%7C%20Hill%20Holliday-4.pdf?submissionGuid=912ae778-6174-4de2-99c0-dea50e12f40a

Tips:

Follow and interact with friends, social causes, and brands that promote positivity. You can unfollow or unfriend anyone.

Allot only a certain amount time for scrolling through your feeds.

Turn off notifications on your phone and computers for unnecessary mobile apps.

Keep your phone out of sight. Use an old school alarm clock instead of your phone by your

Multimedia (The Vault)

Let’s just show some images of mock youtube videos.

💯 👉 Grab screenshot of Kristen Bell: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_m5AlsQqcs

People http://whatdoctorsknow.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/phone_addiction_brain_changes-1038x497.png

https://static-defendershield.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/defendershield-mobile-radiation-effect-sleep.jpg

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Unit 13- Process Journal #7 Implementation

My group planned how we will communicate the way our project should be implemented by creating a shared google document.  We evenly split up the key questions of the Business Model Canvas.  I was in charge of answering the questions surrounding key resources, channels, and revenue stream.  Erika was responsible for answering the questions surrounding key activities, customer relationships and cost structure.  Jake was responsible for answering the Business Model Canvas questions surrounding key partners, value propositions and customer segments.

Overall, we have come to the conclusion that we will solve our problem through various PSAs.  We have used past PSAs and exisiting PSA companies, such as the AdCouncil, to guide us.  We researched which demographic we want to target, teens between the ages of 13 and 18, and know we need channels that reach those demographics.  Specific television and radio stations and social media ads will be most effective.

We will need to pitch our idea to executives of TV/ radio stations, members of the AdCouncil, directors, actors and donors, as we will rely on these people to make our ads complete and put into the public domain.  We will most effectively pitch our idea by expressing the importance of  our message.  All of the people named above need to be passionate about our idea in order for them to get involved.  It is important we explain that social media addiction is a modern day epidemic.  Long term, if younger generations continue their constant social media usage it could be detrimental to human existence.  Human connection and real life, natural experiences are at risk.  On the short term, which is the focus of our project and ad campaign, kids are spending too much time on their phones.  The effects of using social media at a young age causes kids to feel insecure and inadequate through comparing themselves to other people (friends, instagram models, etc) or feeling left out by not being invited to a party that was posted, etc.   We believe that eliminating the use of social media an hour after waking up and an hour before going to bed the self-esteem of these teens will dramatically increase.  Not starting their day feeling insecure and inadequate will have a profound effect on these teens.  We will need to visually communicate our message through commercials and pictorial advertisements.  Maybe we will take a more comedic route by showing their inevitable future of sitting at a dinner table with their family and everyone is on their phones or a futuristic scene of a popular walking intersection of everyone bumping into each other because their heads are down looking at their phones.  We will also implement a petition and protest against big social media companies for manipulating their users into excessive use hopefully to gain traction as a political movement.

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Unit 13- Business Model Canvas (group)

We are creating a “Use Social Media Less Campaign” that will be executed with a variety of multimedia content that exposes the manipulation of social media companies, highlights negative effects, and gives them the tools to make change. This campaign will educate teens and ask them to make a pledge to not start or end their day with social media. The hub for all of this content will live on our campaign website.

Website, Newsletter, and Pledge Page that can be posted on social media

Storyboard an idea for a type of advertisement that we would have

Style Guide

Home

Take Action (Pledge)

The Facts

Invite Friends

Newsletter Opt-In

There is a pledge that details the problem statement of kids spending too much time on their phones. When you land on the pledge page, you are greeted with an opportunity to join the XXXX amount of people that have joined the pledge to not bookend their day on social media.

By opting in to the program, we get back a friend list. We see if there are any friend matches, and we then display them.

Join Friend A, Friend B, and Friend C in spending less time on social media?

[Yes] [No]

If yes, then they are presented with their avatar added to a wall of the thousands of people that have joined in, and pledge on the site. After they see the wall, there is another modal that pops up inviting them to enter their email address for further news and announcements.

Business Model Canvas

Who are our key partners?

Who are our key suppliers?

Which key resources are we acquiring from partners?

Which key activities do partners perform?

We’re pitching to Ad Council to take on our campaign to be a partner and assist as a supplier. Ad Council works with volunteer talent from leading advertising, media, social and digital communications agencies across the country.  We would ask them to help us work with these agencies to help us produce the multimedia content to go on our website platform, such as print advertisements, commercial PSAs, shareable social media images, etc. To help sponsoring organizations have the greatest impact, we can also help develop a communications plan tailored to them, including audience segmentation, branding research, communication strategies, media recommendations and more. On the digital side, we will putting out an RFP, looking for a digital agency that can help execute the full vision, leaning heavily on Facebook developer APIs, and standard design/development integrations. We look in the early phases of this project to build a minimal viable product that features a newsletter signup widget,

What key activities do our value propositions require?

Our Distribution channels?

Customer relationships?

Revenue streams?

Key activities include creating a website with calls to actions and facts about negative impacts about social media use through the use of multimedia content that is shareable. We will have a clear pledge statement. To present this idea to AdCouncil, we will provide a mock-up website and style guide. We will also present a storyboard of an idea for an example PSA and our concepts for a marketing and communication strategy. For the marketing and communication strategy, we need to brainstorm and identify TV networks for our PSA to air on and during which TV shows or specials to sync them with. It will be key for us to also get our campaign out on the road and visible at events where teens are at such as music festivals.

What key resources do our value propositions require?

Our Distribution channels?

Customer relationships?

Revenue streams?

Our key resources for our value propositions include designers, commercial producers, psychologists and researchers (to provide concrete facts), air time, web developers, ad agencies and marketing.  Our distributions channels will include the web, TV, radio, print and social media.  Customer relationships will include an online and informational website to provide teens with the knowledge and tools surrounding social media dependency. We can use other tactics including utilizing unsold advertising space, contacting celebrities to help represent the cause, and persuading media executives to get behind the cause can be beneficial ways to add value and save money and time. There won’t be revenue streams per say because we aren’t selling anything and don’t want to be indebted to a corporation that might twist our messaging.

What value do we deliver to the customer?

Which one of our customer’s problems are we helping to solve?

What bundles of products and services are we offering to each customer segment?

Which customer needs are we satisfying?

Quantifying happiness is a difficult proposition, but something that we intend to tackle with the launch, and then in the follow-up after the product launch. With the social sharing tools that we have enabled we lean on the user sharing the content, as a way to help sustain the value of the product. With time, we could follow up with the user via a chat bot, checking in on the how they are doing, and offer suggestions for ways to better stick to the program.

The goal is to develop a healthy relationship with social media, and by providing timely updates, we can look into their usage, and better cater the program to meet a users needs.

Value Delivered:

Part of social movement - feeling empowered and connected with people around you

Giving them ability to take control of their time

Feeling less inadequate or depressed

Problem Solved:

Wasting time on social media

Feeling inadequate or depressed as result of time spent on social media

Products/Services

Actionable item to make a pledge

Resources / kit of ideas

Shareable content

Needs satisfied:

What type of relationship does each of our customer segments expect us to establish and maintain with them?

Which ones have we established?

How are they integrated with the rest of our business model?

For our project, our customer segment is teens 13-18. We chose to narrow in on this customer segment only, because this is when they start using social media and become most susceptible to the negative impacts. The teens are expecting us to provide truthful facts and not to lecture them in a condescending way. We need to establish trust. The goal is to create content that is relatable, humorous, and impactful. We want it to be an interactive experience with our customers, where they watch our content and want to share it.

It’s vital that we can show teens taking our pledge and prove we are engaging a conversation to show AdCouncil that we are being effective.

Through which channels do our customer segments want to be reached?

How are we reaching them now?

How are our channels integrated?

Which ones work best?

Which ones are most cost effecient?

How are we integrating them with customer routines?

We will reach our customers through TV, streaming website commercials/ads, on social media and at events teens are known to attend such as  music events/ festivals. We will integrate our channels through existing PSA campaign companies such as the AdCouncil. Television is the most sought-after and most expensive of the channels. Social media advertising could be the most effective for our group as it will be a reminder to the user that they should put down their phones. Radio is the most cost efficient. Radio stations make it easy to cater to specific audiences that are targets to our message.  Radio reaches a large audience at a low cost.  We are integrating these channels with customer routines because social media, radio, TV, etc. are already a large part of our targets’ daily life especially if we are targeting teens that use social media and most likely watch TV and surf the web.  

For whom are we creating value?

Who are our most important customers?

Our focus and most important customers are teenagers, age 13-18, who use social media on a daily, sometimes hourly basis. We aren’t putting emphasis on other demographics.

What are the most important costs inherent in our business model?

Which key resources are most expensive?

Which key activities are the most expensive?

The most expensive resource will be the commercial producers and the most expensive key activity will be hiring the producers, actors, and equipment needed to produce the PSAs. There are many costs associated with getting a good airtime slot on primetime TV. We need to select the most appropriate channels to target teens and identify TV shows or specials where a majority of teens will be watching such as MTV Music Awards or Kids Choice Awards.

Our implementation is value driven over cost driven. We are trying to create impact and educate our consumers. We are using an extensive outsourcing model by partnering with AdCouncil to help us with our most expensive costs (producing multimedia content). I imagine we could keep operational costs low by having a small staff of project managers and coordinators.

For what value are our customers really willing to pay?

For what do they currently pay?

How are they currently paying?

How would they prefer to pay?

How much does each revenue stream contribute to overall revenues?

Since we are creating a PSA our targeted audience is currently not paying anything but normal costs for local TV commercial space could be $100 for small-town markets and as much as $20,000 in larger metropolitan areas.  Local radio ads can range from less than $1 to $1,500.  We will depend on donations, government endorsements, favors from directors, photographers, media executives, celebrities who believe in our message to create our content and spread our message.

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Unit 12- Process Journal #6 Selection

Overall, my group and I were able to select the most appropriate idea to address our problem through conversation.  We spoke for quite a bit of time talking through our ideas, expanding on our teammates ideas and even rejecting ideas that we did not agree with.  This was a process that worked well because our team is made up of intelligent, creative and worldly individuals that allow one another to talk.  When our ideas were not aligned, we were polite when countering each other, as to not hurt anyone’s feelings. We were able to extract the ideas we liked to come up with an overall cohesive agreeable solution.  Jake was great because he wrote notes while we discussed so we never forgot a good idea and most importantly, we would return or connect ideas as we continued our conversation.  Towards the end of our conversation it was clear what direction we were going in.  Luckily for us we came to a solution that we all approved and were excited to implement.  Debates occurred but they were never aggressive, as I mentioned before, when we disagreed with one another we selected the aspects we did like or thought connected with the direction we wanted to go in.

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Unit 12- Choosing a Solution

During our time together in class on Wednesday, we were able to spend almost two hours discussing the pros and cons of our mind map that we completed as part of the ideation phase. Using our mind map of ideas, we started talking about ideas that we liked the most and what aspects of it the idea worked and didn’t work. As the discussion moved forward, we utilized the Idea Potpourri technique to talk about the best parts of several ideas / branches that we created.

We had several goals in this project. First, we wanted to ensure we weren’t going to create a new unhealthy habit. Second, we wanted to focus on teen’s reactions to the solution. Third, we wanted to make teens feel empowered, and then pick a solution that wasn’t asking too much of them. It would be difficult to ask them to stop using social media completely, and that wasn’t our goal. Lastly, we want them to start thinking differently about their social media consumption and as a result, choose to spend less time on their apps.

With this project, we weren’t too concerned about the pragmatism and logistical reality of the solutions, as in an MVP context, it would be trivial to roll out a site, and design print media to suit. At the same time, we did think about what would have the most impact.

One idea was to create an app that monitors social media use, but what would the takeaway be? Would that actually cause teens to question their usage and cause them to act in a  certain way? Without testing, and doing further research, we weren’t sure that this would have the intended effects on teens. Knowing how much time you spend online doesn’t necessarily help combat the negative effects of social media.

We worked together to bring together several of our ideas that ultimately culminated in a more interesting idea - a campaign that exposes the manipulation of social media companies and side effects of social media and ask teens to take a pledge to not start or end their day with social media. We think that spending less time online can have a huge mental effect for teens. Skipping the morning and evening are a great way to kickstart, and then wind down a day.

Roni brought up a good starting point - asking teens to not go to bed and wake up with their phones. Jake emphasized that we should have this be the pledge they take and possibly give them some type of reward for their non-participation. Erika rounded out the campaign by emphasizing the need to make it relatable to the teens and actually make them feel empowered rather than telling them what to do. Ultimately, the team was able to bring all of this together to compose and create a better solution.

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Unit 11- Process Journal #5 Ideation

My group and I used the Coggle program in a shared Google Doc to come up with problem solving ideas.  While speaking on the phone we decided to narrow in on a rather complicated issue surrounding the negative effects of social media.  We reviewed and added to our Unit 10 coursework "Finding and Framing Problem."  This assignment allowed us to get specific about the problem we want to tacle.  We decided we were going to ideate questions surrounding teenagers, their feelings as a result of social media use and more specifically their feelings as a result to srolling through their social media feeds.

While creating this Coggle document, we allowed each other to freely add their thoughts.  We each added to the document our own overarching ideas and questions, while also adding to each others ideas.  Since we are a small group of three the process,didn't get out of hand.  While there were moments of silence for our own thoughts to organically accumulate, we also spoke to each other to get feedback about our thoughts.

We catergorized our idea-generating questions by themes all with our problem "How do we make teens feel not inadequate or depressed about scrolling through their social media feeds" at the center.  We created a mind-map with branches such as "alternative methods," "make them feel adaquet," "tools to spend less time on social media."  Within each branch are sub-branches expanding on those ideas, asking more questions or giving examples.  

Overall this process went well.  We took the perfect amount of time to review, add to the classwork assignment, speak about what direction we want to continue with, brainstorming, adding our own ideas to the mind-map as well as expanding on our teammates ideas.  This process was definetly helpful so we could come together narrow in on our problem, listen to our teammates ideas and get our creative juices flowing.

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Unit 11- Group Brainstorming

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Unit 10- Process Journal #4

The methods and techniques my group and I used to come up with ideas to address our problem of social media include morphological analysis, brainstorming, research, collecting as much data as possible in packrat way and applying our own knowledge of the problem.  The outcome of our ideas leaded us to narrowing down the problem to specifically focus on key aspects of addiction and relating it to social media usage.  We decided we would go in the direction of withdrawal symptoms and the hindrance of personal connections and relationships.  We realized that with all the extensive amounts of information we gathered these two topics simplifies our problem and touches upon other information without going into too much detail.  It was also clear to us that withdrawal and personal connections were two of the most important negative side effects of our problem that we want to begin finding a solution for or at the very least explore more.

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Unit 9- Morphological Analysis

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Unit 9- Process Journal #3 Analysis

This week my group and I used morphological analysis to analyze our subject matter of social media addiction.  We looked at the six main categories of addiction in relation to how social media inhibits personal relationships.  The six categories of addiction include salience, euphoria, building a tolerance, conflict, withdrawal and relapse.  We used those six overarching ideas in relation to how people use social media for social connections, dating, chatting, gaming and professional life.  Overall we saw a lot of overlap while connecting these categories.  Social interaction (friendship, dating, business relationship) is a human tendency that we all have but it is artificially expanded with the use of social media.  People become reliant on their social interaction via a device rather than in person contact.  People are quicker to judge, miscommunicate and get lost in a virtual reality.  Our research mainly came from the basics of addiction and addiction behavior.  We really began to understand the root and definition of addiction to then apply our own knowledge of social media use for comparison and analysis.  It was interesting to see that our hypothesis of social media being an addiction is a reality due to checking off the list of six addiction attributes while constantly and obsessively using social media.  We gathered some great insights into the different platforms social media has to offer- dating sites, professional sites, friendship sites that the users of all these different sites can connect back to the six categories of addictive behavior.   (See morphological analysis chart for more details.)

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Unit 8- Process Journal #2 Acceptance

My group and I will accomplish our goals of researching and solving the worldwide epidemic of social media addiction.   At the very least we will be able to inform people of their problem and come up with steps to help them alleviate their addiction.  The immediate expected result, in the best case scenario, is the realization that people have a problem to begin with.  After realizing they have a problem and want to fix that problem they can eventually take the steps that we provide to detach themselves from their devices.  We do not aim to get ride of phones or social media altogether but to inform people of their problem and make them understand how wide spread that problem is.  With less phone time people will be able to make more personal relationships.  People will have the chance to experience their surroundings, for them, in new and exciting ways. Anyone who uses social media in excessive amounts will benefit from the success of our group.  People whose only source of social interaction comes from social media.  People who experience life just to post about it in a desperate attempt for the approval of others via a like, a comment or a “view.”   Social media addiction is a global problem.  I personally see the addiction on a local level through my friends, family and coworkers who are constantly looking down on their devices to refresh their feeds.  From what I witness on a local level leads me to believe the problem exists globally as social media has a global reach.  With research my group will find out more about the statistics of social media addiction throughout the world.   My group aims to educate on the issue of social media dependency, research the psychology behind the addiction and teach how to detach someone from their devices on a local and global level.  The rewards are endless.  Eyestrain from constantly looking at your screen will decrease.  A person’s posture can improve because they are not arched over their smart phones and laptops.  People will begin to make more meaningful relationships, while still being able to connect with others over social media but not in such an obsessive, addictive and unhealthy way.   It is unclear if my group and I expect to produce a product as the solution to our problem.  Maybe we can create an app that limits the use of social media time or maybe create a pamphlet to educate people on the issue.  Maybe along with the app or pamphlet there will be a monetary reward but profit is not our primary concern.   Our project will aid the furthering of my career because my team will explore the psychology behind why people can become, and have become, addicted to social media on a large scale.  Learning the psychology and the basis of an enterprise that has scaled so large can always be helpful in business for research in expanding, scaling and reaching a large and global population.   I am motivated to succeed to further my own knowledge on how to limit my social media use, as well as, the psychology behind scaling so largely.  What made me interested in this problem was my own need to cut back time on my phone while realizing it was a lot more difficult than I thought.  I have always thought it was pathetic in someways of my friends for going about life just so they could post it.  Why is that so important to them? Are they chasing just a momentary satisfaction of a like?  Do they realize they are only portraying an elevated version of themselves and their lives?  Do they realize they are only viewing an elevated version of others that does not give a realistic ideal of reality and happiness? Could it lead to depression? Does it feel fake? Isn’t it exhausting? During the problem-solving endeavor I am compelled to fully commit to the problem, to really understand the problem and brainstorm multiple ways to solve this problem.  I am highly invested in solving this problem because I am committed and passionate about its subject.  I do not want to let my teammates down.  I will be as diligent and timely as possible.  I will try to add value in anyway possible.   Finally, I will most benefit from practicing the process of teamwork and problem solving.  I will also benefit in gaining insights during the research part of the project.  Myself along with many others will benefit in the solution we will find for relieving people of their social media dependency!

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Unit 8- Destination and Journey

The destination and the journey of this project has been long, and full of twisting roads. When we jumped into finding problems to solve, we immediately went to idealistic visions of grandeur. We could solve world hunger, we could tackle obesity, the need for more people to understand personal finance and more.

We looked at the problems around us. We saw huge problems with homelessness in San Francisco and Los Angeles. There were huge issues that affect thousands everyday like traffic, food waste and the need for reputable reporting around American politics.

There were smaller issues too. We had personal gripes, and internal grievances. Why won’t my coffee stay hot! Why is personal speaking so difficult! Why do we we waste so much time in meetings everyday!

With all of this in mind, we turned to introspection, and found something that we see issues with everyday, and that is social media addiction. Our dirty digital habits take over our subconscious hundred of times a day. Push notifications draw us into apps like bells ringing for Pavlov’s dogs. We open apps like Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, or Facebook not because we want to see what’s behind the launch screens, but because we can’t stop.

We don’t feel good after a social media binge, we feel worse. We have seen our lives distorted in the social media bubble that we live in, and with this deep level of involvement, we have to come to an acceptance that there is something wrong, and that we need less tweets/snaps/likes in our lives, and instead seek after real relationships.

[rnwillett-blog]

Unit 8: What’s in it for me?

The benefits that I might accrue if I became involved in this project is the ability to work as a team, come up with ideas and implement ways to solve a problem. Teamwork, creative thinking and implementation are all worthwhile skills that need to be practiced. This project is a great way to get my creative juices flowing while learning the necessary steps to problem solving and team building.

Reflecting on the subject matter of social media addiction that my group and I have chosen to undertake is personally beneficial to me as I see this as a problem that I personally want to overcome. I am fascinated by the way that human behavior has allowed this to become a worldwide epidemic. What is it that makes people constantly check their phones, refresh their feeds, upload content? At least in my tiny bubble of the world, New York City and Los Angeles, everyone I know has a social media or technological dependency whether they realize it or not. I have heard numerous times from my friends, and myself, I’m doing a “social media cleanse” but never succeed.

[rnwillett-blog]

Unit 6- Definitions of Creativity

-curiosity, ask lots of questions

-challenge existing ideas, combine your knowledge and creativity with existing ideas 

-seek inspiration, brainstorm, always keep an open mind, keep yourself well informed