Exfluenced
We need your help!
We were conducting a study to better comprehend whether and how our detox program influenced the usage patterns of social media users. The initial 50 participants were rewarded with 20€ for their time, in addition to enjoying full access to our detox program! Moreover, there was an exciting opportunity: we drew prizes for four 40€ vouchers amongst all the participants. Therefore, it was essential not to miss out on registering on our website!
LATEST UPDATES
Our Instagram awareness campaign was well underway: After its launch on June 1st, we managed to accumulate over 1000 followers! Although this might have seemed like a small milestone, it also showed a growing interest in our project. Going forward, we were looking to improve the content we shared with our audience and wanted to start engaging with our community more actively.
Additionally, our Instagram page continued to provide you with helpful and inspirational information through different infographics and fun memes. Meanwhile, you had conducted multiple interviews with experts to share their insights with our audience. We were planning to do many more interviews in the future and were beginning to reach out to a wide range of interesting personas from politics, academia, and social media.
We had also launched our detox program together with a study to investigate the impact on our users' social media usage.
Be sure to check us out if you had not already!
OVERALL GOAL
Our project examined social media, specifically Instagram, in a comprehensive manner, addressing topics such as the emergence of influencers, concerns related to mental health, and the propagation of harmful misinformation on these platforms.
We initiated our research by reflecting on our personal experiences and posed questions like:
- How did various subgroups, particularly political actors, utilize social media to manipulate individuals to their benefit? Were there any similarities between political and non-political influencers?
- Was there a correlation between concerns surrounding the mental health of social media users and their usage patterns? What were the strategies to mitigate these issues?
- Did users remain satisfied with these platforms and their interaction with them? What did it take for users to become more conscious of their engagement with these networks?
We aimed to scrutinize the extent of the issue and promote awareness!
Project progress
After a period of intensive research, we developed an interactive social media program that helped our users perceive their social media feed more critically. The program included a variety of lections specifically designed to offer new perspectives on our social media use.
Users took on the role of an influencer for one day, reflected critically on their own usage, and learned to see the world of disinformation on social media from a journalist's view. These lections introduced crucial phenomena about our online behavior like FOMO, the infamous fear of missing out, and the addictive mechanisms that social media apps made advantage of.
The most important thing was: Instagram in itself was not bad – our relationship with it was. So we hoped to help people make it healthier.
Our team was engaged in a productive meeting where we worked on our social media detox program.
CORONA TIME
Our project had arrived at a particularly unique period in history – the constraints of the time prevented us from congregating and sharing our thoughts face-to-face, and a significant number of (young) individuals were depending on social media to alleviate feelings of isolation and monotony. The use of social media had been escalating, but people's cognizance of the content they were perusing or observing hadn't kept pace. False assertions about the virus by fictional doctors and individuals were as abundant as legitimate ones, and it wasn't always simple to tell them apart. We felt that our mission was as vital as ever. People needed to become more discerning about the information they absorbed and trusted, particularly in relation to their health.
TEAM
From left to right: Andrea, Laura, Marie, Christopher, Deniz, Omar, Len, Maryna, David
- Christopher Ebert
- Deniz Bezgin
- Len Brandes
- Andrea Weiller
- Maryna Shcherbak
- Marie Huemer
- Omar Eldeeb
- David Noachtar
- Laura Ballentin
TUTORS
- Jakob Scheffels
- Christos Gazanis