Week 5: Possible Interviews and Focus Group

Welcome to Week 5!!! This week I added questions to the survey that ask participants about what social media apps they use regularly. My concern when starting this project was that because there are so many social media apps, each with their own algorithms and restrictions, there would be far too much variation in the survey results. In addition to adding questions to the survey I am also going to do a few interviews with Gen Z students who regularly use more than one social media platform, students who only use one on occasion, and those who have no social media at all. I will ask the students about the differences they notice across platforms. In these interviews I hope to get a more personal look at how social media is impacting young people’s conversations around mental health. The survey will be a great tool for gathering the information I need across a large population, but the interviews will allow me to ask more specific questions, especially for those who don’t spend a lot of time online. Another option to consider would be a focus group of students. I would ask the group roughly the same questions as in the interviews, hopefully the discussion setting would allow participants to open up more about their experiences with social media’s impact on their lives. 

As I mentioned last week, Instagram has recently changed its algorithm. One of the major changes was an increase in restriction on content surrounding suicide and eating disorders. While I was looking through my explore page this week, however, I saw plenty of content surrounding other mental health issues. I have found that as I try to research how mental health issues are discussed online, that my explore page has become pretty focused on mental health, because at the moment that is what I am looking for. It shouldn’t be this easy for a 17 year old to get tons of misinformation from other people who have no clue how to diagnose people. 

When I was giving my Senior Project Proposal presentation, I read out the captions of a “put a finger down” TikTok that ended with a diagnosis of General Anxiety Disorder if the viewer had answered yes (put a finger down) to 5 or more questions about their habits and mental state. The video then prompted viewers to share the video with an anxious friend to “spread awareness”. The video was shared thousands of times, implying that younger audiences share the content, may self-diagnose, and further spread misinformation. 

This issue is a huge concern for me, and that’s why I chose to pursue this project. I hope that the results of my survey and project overall will shine some serious light on this issue and give those who see it a better understanding of the extent of the issue.