Article Chosen: PEW Research Article

CLEAR IMAGE:

Task 2 NMD 200

Design Issue being targeted: Lack of Privacy

Although technology, specifically social media, has its benefits within relationships and adolescence, there is a large amount of damage it is causing to the younger generation and it will continue to cause this harm without reform. Social media is a way to connect and share with peers, and create memories captured online throughout the magic of your childhood years. However, with that documentation comes the danger of lack of privacy. This lack of privacy can lead to cyber-bullying, the spread of personal information, affects on kid’s mental health, and a snowball effect of life getting out of one’s control.

I have seen first-hand the damage that social media can cause to a young persons mental health and privacy. In high school there was an incident where a friend of mine’s private pictures and information were leaked by a peer. The thing about the internet is, whatever gets put out there never disappears. Having access to this much power and exploitation at such a young age is increasingly dangerous. With growing minds, it can’t be helped but to make mistakes, even without malicious intent.

This exposure can have a strong negative impact on youth’s mental health. Along with privacy issues within technology and social media, younger people being online for a great deal of their life can create a sort of clouded judgement within youth. Hiding behind a screen, students cannot fully grasp what they’re putting out there, nor how they’re treating people. There is a lack of normally learned empathy and respect when handling everything virtually, you cannot see the true face and emotions of the people you are dealing with. According to the article, ‘The Future of Well-Being in a Tech-Saturated World’ by the PEW Research Center, “People’s social and emotional intelligence have been impaired by the displacement of personal interactions with online interactions.”

I propose taking action on this issue through the further protection of adolescence privacy, through the blocking of screen-shotting, and having a system in place that recognizes information that may be too private to put online. With every social media site, there would be software in place to prevent screen-shotting of private account’s pictures and posts. Additionally, when posting and adding information about oneself, the app would recommend what information is internet safe, and what is worth keeping private. This installed software would also prevent the posting of hateful, detrimental, and bullying speech and comments on other people’s pages. This would be put to work with the goal of preventing damage to young users mental health and privacy. It is meant to restore technology and social media’s original purpose, to share, be creative, and learn within one’s community online; rather than having the negatives bounce off of each other, the positives would.

This idea is represented by my creation of a safety ‘bubble’ design, showing the blocking of negativities while keeping together the positives. The dark bubbles, representing hateful use of social media, bring in negativity under the sun that shines over our society; whereas the light bubbles reflect the rays that try to penetrate its boundaries.