Innovative design:

My design is a social media platform designed specifically for teenagers. This app would function like training wheels on a bike, allowing teens to use social media safely and healthily. This would allow teens to use social media to make real connections, safely meet face-to-face and build proper social skills.

When you set up a profile on the app, it will ask you to describe your interests, hobbies, and suggest other users in your area with similar interests. The platform would allow you to find other teenagers in your high school, college, and general area that share your interests. The platform would also allow you to find group events and activities related to your interests. Users would be able to add events and create group activities. They would then be able to invite friends or make the event or activity public to other teens in their area. The platform would require that events and activities take place in public places and not be one-on-one meetups. There would need to be some way to monitor for fake accounts, catfishing, and other similar activities to keep the environment safe. Comments and posts would be monitored for negative, inappropriate, and provocative content. The content found to be harmful or offensive toward other users would be taken down.

In this social media app, the number of accounts followed and the number of followers a user has would be private information. You would not be able to view the number of followers and likes other users have like you can on Instagram. It would also promote limited use by limiting notifications eliminating the pressure to be online that comes with the public social ranking on social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. This app would not include any filters like Instagram and Snapchat. Instead, it would promote posting natural and honest content. Without filters and editing, users might be more likely to post content focused on activities. This may help to alleviate the narcissistic culture created by selfie-centered social media platforms.

Instead of getting notifications constantly, this app would give you a daily notification letting you know if you had any messages, likes, comments, or new posts. Users would be able to choose when they get this notification. I think knowing that you’ll get a notification at one point in the day would eliminate some of the addicting effects of social media. This may keep users from constantly checking their phones because they are not constantly getting notifications. A lot of phones have features to track and limit screen time. You can set downtimes, app limits, and communication limits. The problem with this is most teenage users are unlikely to use these features on their own. Younger generations that have grown up around technology and many are addicted are not likely to work toward it. The pull-to-refresh mechanism is one of the most addictive features of social media platforms. Tristan Harris compares it to a slot machine, addicting people with the anticipation of what will pop up next. This app would not include a way to refresh the page without closing the app. This would help teenagers limit social media use and promote routine use to stay connected with friends and peers. Just as “slot machines would be far less addictive if gamblers didn’t get to pull the lever themselves,” social media would be far less addictive if users couldn’t simply pull down to refresh.

The color scheme of the app would be blue, including the like button. I chose blue because it helps calm your mind, slow down your heart rate, lower blood pressure, and reduce anxiety. Many social media platforms started out using blue and switched to red because it is a trigger color and increased the use of the like button and similar features. The goal of likes in this app is not to keep users using it but instead to stay connected and interactive with friends.

Upgraded criteria: Emotional, Social Reasoning, and Group Dynamics

The focus of my social media platform is emotional design criteria. Many studies have found a correlation between anxiety, depression, and other negative emotions and social media use. I think that social reasoning and group dynamics are related to emotional criteria in terms of social media. In my research into human happiness in the last project, I found that social needs play a huge role in mental health. People need to have authentic connections and have a sense of belonging and safety to be happy. Current social media platforms work against this, lowering self-esteem, making users feel isolated, and creating a false reality where the difference between fake and real is indiscernible. By eliminating public social ranking and filters, this platform would decrease anxiety and depression and push users to be more authentic. It would also work to improve mental health by promoting face-to-face interaction and helping teenagers build real connections.

Supportive context:

Social media has become an integral part of teen life, so supporters of this platform would likely be parents and teenagers dissatisfied with current social media platforms. Teenagers are not mature, and they are still learning how to be a part of society. In school and at home, teenagers are monitored and confronted when their behavior is socially unacceptable. There is very limited control over what teens view and post on social media. Many social media platforms instigate posting provocative and inappropriate content. This is in part because current platforms encourage users to post what gets them the most likes. The limitations of this social media platform would function much like rules schools and parents use to create safe learning and home environments.

Weigh Costs:

This app would have quite a bit of labor involved, as content and users would be monitored. Unlike current social media apps, this app would only gather data to connect users to others with similar interests. This means no data would be sold. The app would have to be profitable in another way. The potential benefits over other social media platforms might mean users would be willing to pay to keep it running.