Screens of Good

By Alex Quade, Peter Ward, & Hayley Graham

PROBLEM

In today’s day and age of social media, media-based politics, and online environments, technology has become a major force in all fields and interests. This element of the online world is so impactful that in any type of social, professional, and educational setting, technology is not only important but a necessity. In a sense, if one was to isolate themselves from technology, they would also be isolating themselves from modern existence as it is.
The problem in which technological addiction is rooted is not necessarily found in the physical design of technology but rather in the nature and behavior of human beings in the use of technology. There are, however, attributes of design that rely on that aspect of human behavior to create and develop the addiction that so overwhelms our modern society

Martin Heidegger, a German philosopher whose work lies primarily within the early 1900s, has a line of thought regarding modern technology. He claims that most people would define technology as a tool to complete a certain task, which is an incomplete synopsis. To Heidegger, the essence of technology is revealing. True technology is the ability to reveal the rolling pin from a tree, and since modern scientists have not adhered to this definition they have created a version of modern technology that alienates humans from actually being.

To quote Heidegger, “it’s a challenging which puts to nature the unreasonable demand that it supplies energy which can be extracted and stored as such.” Heidegger claims that modern science and technology sets upon nature rather than attempting to derive.

Although the world of technology has undergone rather drastic changes since Heidegger’s time, there is a certain truth that lies within the realm in which technology was built. While early technological advances such as the iPhone were created with the intent to make communication and information more accessible, it also provided a platform making it easy for those who wish to exploit. With the original goal of freedom, technology has yielded creations of social media platforms which act as a sort of prison. According to comedian Bo Burnham, we are living as a part of the “me” generation, and that social media was “the market’s answer for a generation that demands to perform.”

RESEARCH

Survey

To begin our research, we started out with a simple survey and a couple of simple questions. Our first target audience was developed through the app, Instagram, using a “poll feature” in which users can answer “yes” or “no”.

The first question asked, “Do you think that you are addicted to your phone?”
To this, 86 people responded yes and 18 people responded no.

The second question asked, “Do you care if you are addicted to your phone?”
To this, 66 people responded yes and 38 people responded no.

With this information, the group was able to gauge a common response to the severity of the issue present. From this point, we developed a more in-depth survey and sent it out to friends, family, friends of family, etc…

With our second survey, we developed 15 questions to capture an idea of how the average person behaves in response to and while interacting with their phone. Based on our previous short survey (in which we determined that most people are addicted to their phones), we hypothesized that we would develop fairly similar results; However, with the more intense questions we were able to determine the factors that could lead to “addiction”.

As expected, nearly 90% of people replied that they did feel addicted to their phones; Yet, around 60% said that they aren’t bothered by it. This statistic proves our understanding of the human behavior that for many, technology is a necessity and for something so important, it doesn’t become much of an issue (although, the 40% may be more aware of their behavior.

Other statistics followed the same trend:

Observation

One important aspect that the group developed early on in our problem definition was an observation, specifically of our own User Centered Design Class. Throughout class observation in two separate class periods, we developed the multiple situations in which we saw the most phone use. For some, it seemed that the most common use of their technology was an aimless wandering onto social media, text messages or other platforms.

Within this time, we observed around 10 people pick up their phones, check for notifications or the time, and set it back down.

We also observed about 6 people open Instagram, scroll quickly, and soon after put their phone down. A couple others opened snapchat, some quickly replying to messages, and others putting their phone down after.

Oddly, most people did not spend prolonged periods of time on their devices, but it did seem, however, that they were dependent on checking it with frequency as to not lose contact with the online world.

Personas

Persona 1:
A UC student constantly is checking her phone to update her Instagram, text her friends, and take Snapchats. She is distracted in conversation by her phone notifications, and her friends consistently harass her for texting rather than communicating in person. She does not care because she enjoys posting about her life and interacting with people that are not in the room with her.

Persona 2:
A student uses their phone a high amount but does not think he is addicted to it in any sense. In reality, the use negatively affects his self-esteem and reduces the quality of his in-person interactions. He tries to limit the use of his phone but ends up using it more than the average person.

Persona 3:
A teenager who believes that technology is toxic actively avoids spending too much time on their phone. He is constantly unresponsive to others’ attempts to reach them via phone and has gained a reputation for being difficult to reach. In his opinion, social media is useless in regards to being socially involved and only detrimental to mental health.

Interview

• Dependent, not addicted. Manic use of phone. Possibly ADHD. Lack of attention span.
• Takes measures to ignore her phone in order to get things done. Or while in certain social settings.
• In the process of this interview, Emma has been interrupted three times by an unnamed group member about matters regarding a text conversation. Touche.
• Do you value what people post?-no
• Doesn’t think people value her posts. genuinely believes that no one other than the poster cares about the content.
• She believes that people post content in order to cater to the norm i.e. what gets the most likes, what gathers the most attention. Popular social media users are veering away from what the initial purpose of social media is: a form of self-expression. Emma believes that no one cares about anything other than their own content. If someone posts an “unusual” picture with an unconventional caption, she believes that it gets noticed more, but doesn’t display an ample amount of attention. Example being: and unconventional picture/caption will result in fewer likes but will result in more people discussing the post outside of the media platform in gossip-like fashion. This disproves social media/technology’s other initial purpose which is communication and sharing of ideas.

DESIGN/EVALUATE

As a group, we had developed our issue-the major point being the human aspect as it relates to the use of social media and validation through media.
Our solution, therefore, was to create a social media where validation was not an option (an un-likable platform); However, it was clear that people would not want to drop their current socials (like Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook) to pick up a new one. Our prototypes, therefore, are modifications were to those existing platforms.

We believe that our prototype would be more accurately reviewed from a wide audience rather than a handful of users, so after creating our prototypes, we decided to create a survey. On Instagram, we polled to ask:

1) Would you continue to use Instagram if there wasn’t a “like” feature?
2) Would you prefer Instagram if there wasn’t a “like” feature?

From our results, it was clear that although people would still use their social platform without likes, users would not prefer that. From this information and in future research, it is clear that users use their socials in great part due to the validation/likes and any further, more produced solution would have to address that need.

REFLECT

After conducting our research and establishing our problem, we found it difficult to construct a paper prototype due to the fact that our problem addressed a more conceptual problem with human nature more than a specific design issue. As stated before, we believe that designers have exploited human’s inherent need for attention and validation making the problem grow over the years, and with our prototypes, we attempted to break down those elements.

Throughout the process of creating our prototype, we discovered that there is a fine line between various features being methods for validation or as a means of communication. For example, we originally proposed to remove the “like” button as well as the “retweet” button on Twitter, seeing both as forms of validation. Upon further investigation, we saw the “retweet” button as an efficient method for spreading information and connecting users. Instead of eliminating the button altogether, we simply removed the feature that shows how many retweets a certain Tweet received.

We believe that our prototype would be effective if used. According to the survey on Instagram, the majority of the public would be willing to use our proposed platform. Using this prototype will likely result in users being more willing to post the content that they want, rather than the content that other’s want in order to receive more validation as well as cutting down on the time spent on the app itself. The only issue our prototype would run into is the fact that people would prefer to receive validation from their posts. If our prototype was brought to fruition, there may be a cut down of users, but would hopefully lead to a more humble and thoughtful public.

On a scale from 1–10 we believe that our group deserves around a 9. Our group dug into human nature and attempted to highlight an issue that was deeper than mere design. In addition, we created a solution that does not necessarily lead to a “pleased” user but instead leads to bettering and challenging the user.

Sources and Inspiration

Bo Burnham Netflix special, “Make Happy”

Interview with Emma Oaks on 11/20

Survey via Google Forms on 11/20

Survey via Instagram stories on 11/20 and 12/10

Philosophize This! Episode 101 on Heidegger “Science and Technology. http://philosophizethis.org/heidegger-technology/

Nest Founder: “I Wake Up In Cold Sweats Thinking, What Did We Bring To The World?” https://www.fastcompany.com/90132364/nest-founder-i-wake-up-in-cold-sweats-thinking-what-did-we-bring-to-the-world