My thesis topic for now is what might happen if I can make a systemic improvement to help youths build new community/ space and rebuild their relationships with families and friends?
Actually my whole topic has continuelly changed as the I did more research. At first, it was focus on social media addiction and isolation. But I feel that “social media” is only a part of the problem and I want to more focus on the influence of the smartphone and the impacts of people's relationship. It is really hard to swift people’s mindset. After that, I began to consider lack of communication and broken relationship as key words that lots of isolation and negative feelings happens. This gives me a wider view on where I can intervene. It is a complex problem that it is related to people, context, relationship, society and community. So I feel it is time for me to interview with more people in the university and do more research on this topic.
During the past few months, I interviewed several people, such as university students, a mother who
complained lot about the smartphone age and some commuters in the subway. Also, we did many useful exercise in class, such as generating bold conceptions and making prototype.
Look back at the strengths and challenges I defined in week 1, I think that things are changing. For example, I feel myself more immersed in the American culture. Because during the communication design, I was exposed to culture-centered conversation. Also I successfully reached out to lots of interviewees that gave me lots of useful information about their opinions of the smartphone age.
Comments