Visual Story Board
Frames 1-4 of my storyboard
Frame 5 of my storyboard
My starting topic is mindless scrolling, I like many others have grown up with some kind of device in my hands, be it a game, an iPod, a phone, etc., many people can relate to the action of spending hours on end in front of some kind of device, be it a console, a cellphone, laptop, etc. just mindlessly scrolling To many of us, the reason we spend all this time on these devices outside of work/school related reasons, is to use them as an outlet to escape from the stress of the real world. Everything nowadays is behind a screen and it has become so normalized for these media companies to collect users data. Many young people today that have grown up with these devices have become so accustomed to their data being collected and used that it doesn’t faze them, in fact many prefer that their data be collected if it results in an easier user experience. Everything nowadays comes down to the user experience, how to keep users on their application for long periods of time, this is why it’s important to make this topic into an explorable networked space. For users to really visualize what mindless scrolling does to a person.
The relationship between the users and the space that I am trying to encourage is a cautious and aware one. The space itself would be a cell phone that the user can go through the different apps and each app has different interactions for the user to do, based off these interactions the user will start to notice changes in the apps that are reflective of the choices they’ve made. Some of these changes could be random notifications, not being able to go back on an app after a certain amount of time. These changes are meant to catch the users attention over a period of time and encourage them to get out of this mindless scrolling trance they’re in to reflect on themselves, and think about other important things that may need to be done in their lives. This mindless scrolling tends to happen because people tend to function on autopilot so to speak until something else gets their attention and that is what this space is meant to do, make them aware of all the mindless scrolling they do to ultimately encourage all of us to break that habit, as we have become ridiculously addicted to our devices.
I do believe that my space will challenge people to reflect on their own habits while using their devices. In regard to empowerment, I believe acknowledging those habits and trying to break out of them can be very empowering to each individual trying to get control of their life and not letting the device control them. The reality that many of us are facing today is the fact that we spend so much time on our cell phones, laptops, tablets, etc. Every single day we are constantly glued to our devices needing to be up to speed on everything and anything happening all around the world at once that it can sometimes feel like we have no control over our lives anymore or just incredibly overwhelming. Often we may even forget that we can shut off the devices and focus on ourselves and how great that actually can feel and that is what this space is aiming for. At the end of the game there will be an option to share the game with friends as a way to encourage others to break the habit as well, in a way encouraging collaboration.
Frames 1-4 of my storyboard
Frame 5 of my storyboard
The LikeLike neo arcade is a website hosted by the Online Museum of Multiplayer Art (oMoMA) that is meant to be an online version of their physical venue which hosts monthly showcases for experimental video games. The first thing the user has to do when they go on the website, is create an avatar that they can use to navigate around the venue with and check out the various games on display. There are also some interesting rooms the user can explore, such as the censorship room with the giant elephant in the middle where you can only say something once, any time after that your message is censored, there is also a fun easter egg where you just cannot say the word elephant in that room. The censorship room in a way reminds me of a feature in my project that once you exit and app, you will not be able to go back onto it, at least not for a certain period. One of the games the venue has on display at the entrance of the venue under the existential game category, called Ennuigi also has similarities. The game itself isn’t similar but it’s goals, what it’s trying to achieve is similar in the sense that the game is made to make you reflect on your actions and motivations, in Ennuigi in particular, you’re reflecting on the actions of Luigi of the Mario Brothers franchise.
Miranda July’s public art experiment called “Somebody” was an application and project that was active between the 28th of August 2014 and the 31st of October 2015. The premise of this application was to have strangers who were physically near the person you wanted a message delivered too, to go up to that person and deliver the message to them vocally as your stand-in so you don’t have too. A short 10 minute film was also made that shows how this app works and it really showcases societies dependence on technology especially in the first example the film show where a woman uses the app to break up with her boyfriend, something that should be done in person. I feel like the concept behind the app really highlights this disconnect between the sender and receiver through our dependence of our phones, which is where I see similarities to my project. We spend so much time on our phones and we can do virtually anything we want on them today that we may not realize how disconnected we are becoming to the real world around us as our worlds become what’s behind our phone screens.
Benjamin Grosser’s Facebook demetricator is an addon one can install on their browser which hides all the metrics/numbers you say flooded throughout the website. A huge factor that comes into play with the over consumption of social media is people’s obsession with numbers due to capitalist desires, how many likes, comments, share something has, how many people are attending an event, how many people are in this group, etc. The purpose of this browser extension is to eliminate that and instead encourage a user experience which is not dependent on that quantification, it’s meant to make the user aware of these design choices and reflect on whether or not they’re using the platform as much as they do if that quantification is present throughout the website. Both this browser extension and my project are meant to make the user reflect on their social media usage and how various aspects of them influence them to continue spending more time on their platforms.
As wonderful and creative as the projects mentioned above are, none of them are do exactly what I am aiming for in my project. My project is different because I want to use the medium that everyone is obsessed with (smartphones) and really make people start to reflect, visualize and understand the effects that mindless scrolling through all of these apps on our devices, has on us as individuals. How all this mindless scrolling and exposure to so much media anytime we want has really been shortening our attention spans, how it negatively effects our mental health. My project will have the user interact with a smartphone on a webpage and on this phone are various fake social media apps that the user can navigate through and the posts could be images from unsplash’s image api with captions that describe an event relating to the image. On the homepage of the phone there will also be a widget that allows users to turn music on, ideally, I would use the Spotify API for this and the music would be setting the tone of the website, with music that makes the user feel rushed, however I’m still unsure of the music aspect. On certain apps the user will be able to leave comments that would be stored on a database so that if the user goes back on the app at a later time they could see the comment again, emphasizing the permanence of your actions on social media.