The design issue I’d like to focus in on is the addictive nature of social media, and how it contributes to distractions. I personally relate to this issue as it affects me often in my everyday life. Every time we get a notification, it provides a rush of dopamine, and shifts our attention from what we are doing to our phones. As stated by an article on Digital Responsibility, a professor discovered that students could concentrate for an average of a measly three minutes at a stretch. This addiction and distraction is destructive to our overall lives, moving our attention from more important life processes to a small brick in our hands. A Business Insider article states, “the average US adult spends more than 11 hours daily in the digital world”.
I believe a solution to this problem could be an application on our phone that turns off all notifications on our phone for a set time by the user. The app would then provide a randomized list of activities/ideas of things to do, such as: go for a walk, call your mom and chat with her for a bit, work on a long put off project of yours, start a new hobby or pick up on of your existing hobbies. This solution is a way to help individuals suffering from this issue potentially get some fulfillment/productive time in their day, while not uninstalling social media in its entirety, as there are still benefits to being connected. The visual below would be the applications icon.
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