NHS Page - Link Between Depression & Smartphone Use

I have found and read this page from the NHS website, which goes in to a fair amount of detail about the links which researchers have found between depression and frequent use of smartphones and whether or not using smartphones actually causes depression.





It has been found by researchers that people who have had reported depressive symptoms used their phone more often and visited fewer locations other than their home compared to people who do not have these symptoms. 

However, in regards to these results, there were many factors not included in the research such as the employment of the people or whether they have children or not - which would impact on how often they use a phone and how often they are going out of the house. 

The research conducted was an observational study and therefore can only show an association, not prove cause and effect. 
It was done through a questionnaire on a present on a smartphone app, and this can give an indication whether a person is likely to be depressed based on the answers given.

In the conclusion the page states that this particular study should not be taken too seriously as it does not prove that mobile phone use causes depression, it only suggests that people who report higher levels of depression use a mobile phone more and go out less.

http://www.nhs.uk/news/2015/07July/Pages/Weak-link-between-depression-and-frequent-smartphone-use.aspx

Development of Idea

After meeting with my supervisor Miriam for the first time last week, I took her comments on board and have now decided that I will focus my whole project on to smartphones, as whilst researching the topic of addiction to technology and changes in human behaviour due to technology, I was finding most informative and interesting research to be about smartphones.

In order to develop my idea and make it more specific I have looked at particular relevant issues in our society to base my project around. These ideas include:

- How are smartphones damaging and having a negative impact on the younger generation? Mainly children and teenagers.

- How smartphones affect the social society and how they impact and transform social aspects of modern society / how and why they are making us anti-social.

- The effects of smartphones in particular on human's behaviour - what changes users make due to using a smartphone and how it is affecting people.

- Understanding the positive and negative aspects of smartphones on society, and comparing both of these, ending up with whether they are more positive on users or more negative.

These 4 points all relate to smartphones - all of which I believe could be an interesting case study and a project to work with because they are specific to just the one type of advanced technology and it is a very current topic. I have made each point more specific to one issue and not so vague.

Supervisor Meeting 1 - 10/12/15

Today was the first time meeting my supervisor for this project. Her name is Miriam Sorrentino, a Senior Lecturer in Graphic Design, Branding & Advertising.

At this point I have a vague idea of what I would like to do for my project - which is how advanced technology, specifically smartphones affect human behaviour, interaction and socialisation. I will be constructing a multi-media campaign to raise awareness of this topic after completing creative research and practice based research. 

I have submitted my second proposal form a couple of weeks ago, however I do believe my idea will now change slightly from this after I have finalised a more specific topic. Although, it will remain definitely to be about smartphones or tablets negatively affecting human behaviour.

After my meeting with Miriam today, she guided me on the things I need to think about to specify my topic. I took notes of the things we discussed and in particular the things I need to do to get my project moving. 

We decided that my topic is not specific enough and there are many things I need to think about to make my project successful. 

We spoke about how I need to define the point of view of my research, which means who I am speaking on behalf of when using research, and what I want to achieve with my research. 

Miriam also provided me with books which will help me to develop a strategy and decide on a specific topic. Once I have done this I will need to think about what research I need to do and the sort of people I will need to talk to for this.

This was a successful first meeting and I feel confident that before our next meeting I will have precise topic to move forward with which I will begin to research in depth.

Images from Digital Synopsis

These are some images I have found recently on Digital Synopsis, a website for design, advertising and creative inspiration. They each have the same sort of meaning - which is how people are being controlled by and are addicted to smartphones.

The first image is very bright and colourful, which immediately caught my eye. I really like how this concept reinforces the idea that the human is physically being controlled by the device - and this is shown by the technological device (in this case a smartphone) 'walking' the user and then the user walking their dog, and the dog walking the cat and so on. This is a way of showing an every day hierarchy with a twist of incorporating a smartphone as the most dominant object at the beginning of the chain.

The second image clearly shows how every person is holding and looking at a smartphone as well as using a stick which a blind person would use. This image is tremendously powerful and almost states right there how you could lose vision or go blind from using a smartphone - which is a major health implication.

The last image contains a number of people who look like they have been designed as zombies who are all hunched over looking at their smartphones. I believe the idea behind this is that by constantly using a smartphone it makes a person become and act like a zombie - not pay much attention to or concerned about anything other than what they are looking at, and again highlights the idea of addiction.

http://digitalsynopsis.com

'Phone Dog' Article - Smartphones Affecting Us Socially

19th October 2013

is an article written by Anna Scantlin. Within this article, she covers how smartphones have progressed and whether or not people including herself have become addicted to them. 

This article stood out to me because she has written it from her own point of view of how smartphones can make life easier and how she personally uses a smartphone, which affects the social aspects of her life.





Throughout this article Scantlin goes in to detail about how it is much more convenient to use a smartphone to contact other people, when you are sitting in your house in pyjamas for example, and how leaving the house for communication is no longer necessary. 

Things such as applications on smartphones are also brought up in this article - how you can use online banking from a phone instead of going out to the bank or how you can order food from a phone instead of going out and buying it or actually talking to someone over phone to order it. 

Whilst these things are extremely handy, it seems as though we may be heading towards lives and a society which are very anti-social. 

http://www.phonedog.com/2013/10/19/smartphones-may-make-life-easier-but-how-are-they-affecting-us-socially

'Make Use Of' Page - Smartphones Are Ruining Our Lives

I have come across an extremely informative and interesting web-page, which I think relates to my project perfectly. It is about how smartphones are ruining people's lives - however I think this could relate to smartphones or tablets such as iPads. 



This page has been written by Dave Parrack, and covers in detail many important points of using a smartphone and explains how smartphones may be ruining your life or has the capacity to do that in the future.

Barrack explains how smartphones are firstly harming human relationships - people would rather spend their time interacting through their phones (email, text, messaging services, social networks) than actually connecting to people in person.

Also, how people are living their lives through a camera lens - smartphones generally have good camera quality and real photography cameras are being ditched due to how phones are constantly in users' hands ready to take a photo or video at any moment instead of living the occasion in real life.

More points Dave Barrack makes includes: how smartphones are dominating people's free time and how they encourage oversharing of things via social networks and the internet. Also getting away from everything else like a desktop computer but not a smartphone, as it is handy and accessible at all times and lastly how people rely far too much on them.

This page is concluded with a message to smartphone users to be aware of how this technology can affect your life.

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/smartphones-ruining-life/

Proposal Form - Version 2

This is the second version of my proposal form which I have submitted today. 

I have taken all of the feedback from David on board and adapted my proposal form slightly. I feel as though I have covered the feedback points given and used my meeting with David to my advantage to submit my proposal with a more definitive idea as to how I will answer my research question and what research methods I will use, to then create my final outcome which is my campaign.

I will be solely basing my project around smartphones and tablets and how they affect social interaction and changes in human behaviour. I will mainly be looking at negative changes as I will be highlighting how we do not have physical social interaction as much as we do through a device, as well as how people are using their smartphone or tablet to do things which they should be physically doing themselves. 

An example of this would be how one may use their smartphone or tablet to order their shopping online instead of physically going out to the shop to do their shopping - which could be seen as positive or negative but I will be pointing out the negative sides to these things and by doing things like this on a technological device how it can begin to affect people's health and behaviour.

Daily Mail Article - Modern Technology

Neuroscientist Susan Greenfield has written an article for the Daily Mail expressing how modern technology is affecting who we are, what we do and how we behave. This article is extremely relevant to my topic and focuses on how the human brain is under threat from the modern world.





Greenfield goes in to detail about how our electronic devices involve dangers which are gradually coming in to play. Whilst there are benefits from technical progression, there are also negative influences on the brain, including video games, the internet, wireless networks such as bluetooth and many more.

Susan Greenfield also states that electronic devices can affect our personality, behaviour and also characteristics - which is in fact altering our human identity. An example of this is attention spans becoming shorter, personal communication skills are reduced and there is a marked reduction in the ability to think creatively and abstractly. 

As this article is written by a neuroscientist it is very detailed and explains how this technology is affecting humans from a scientifical point of view. It relates extremely well to my topic and research question.

This article has been adapted from Susan Greenfield's book called ID: The Quest for Meaning in the 21st Century.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-565207/Modern-technology-changing-way-brains-work-says-neuroscientist.html

NHS Page - Mobile Phone Safety

After browsing various pages on the internet regarding effects of using smartphones / mobile phones in particular, I came across a page on the NHS website about the safety of mobile phones - which relates to the idea of technology causing harm and negativity to users.





The above paragraph has been taken from the relevant page and is the introduction to the whole page. It is a fact with a statistic which is a way of shocking the reader and enticing them to continue reading. 

This page explains how concerns have been expressed that frequent exposure to radio waves through mobile phones can increase the risk of health implications such as cancer.

This page also gives a brief list of points to advise how to be safe whilst driving and being in possession of a mobile phone - such as 'if you need to use your mobile phone, stop in a safe place'. Car users should know it is illegal to use a phone whilst driving, so the points are there to remind people to use their phones safely. 

Overall this is a brief page which highlights certain ways in which one can use their mobile phone more safely.

http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Mobile-phone-safety/Pages/Introduction.aspx


There is also a second section of the page which emphasises the risks of mobile phone use - including risks to children, interference with electrical equipment and more.





In this section it actually explains that the radio waves produced by mobile phones do not pose a known risk to health as they are not powerful enough - however there are other risks which can affect things other than health.

http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Mobile-phone-safety/Pages/Risks.aspx

Ken Lum - Artist & Educator

Ken Lum is a Chinese-Canadian artist and educator. He is a director of an undergraduate Fine Arts programme at the University of Pennsylvania. He works in a number of platforms including paintings, sculptures and photography. 

Lum mainly uses a combination of photographic images and text, sculptural components and other ideas that address every day contemporary life. He tends to pair images with text in order for viewers to think about social issues and the visual world.

Here are some examples of his work which I find inspiring and the most interesting.













I like how Ken Lum uses a variety of different colours in his work as this makes every individual piece of work look entirely different from one another, but still using the same theme of the image on the left and the text on right. 

I definitely like the idea of having text alongside the image as it gives the viewer a better idea of the scenario of the photograph but still leaves it open enough for the viewer to decide what the image is about.

Ken Lum's work has definitely influenced my ideas in how to create my own images within my campaign.

http://canadianart.ca/artists/ken-lum/

https://www.gallery.ca/en/see/collections/artist.php?iartistid=3389

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Lum

Barbara Kruger - Conceptual Artist

Barbara Kruger is an American feminist conceptual artist, graphic designer and photographer. She is best known for her prints where she placed a concise caption across photographs from existing sources. Her text speaks to the viewer to get leave them a message which are to do with feminism, consumerism, classicism and more.

Her work is inspiring as each piece of art holds the same idea of displaying a strong and bold message to get across to the viewer. I very much like this idea and would like to do something similar with my posters; using a strong fact I have gained from my research - as a way to shock the audience and get their attention. 

Here I have created a collage demonstrating some of my favourites and the most influential pieces of her work in my opinion.



I very much like how Barbara's images here are extremely simple but are so eye catching and interesting at the same time. I really like her idea of using a black and white simplistic image - mainly of either people or close up body parts such as the hands. 

She then uses the vibrant red colour on top of this which stands out and grabs the viewers attention - this is something I want my posters to do. I will do something similar with my posters and use short sentences and words to get a message across with simple images.

http://www.barbarakruger.com

https://uk.pinterest.com/search/pins/?q=barbara%20kruger&rs=typed&0=barbara%7Ctyped&1=kruger%7Ctyped

http://www.theartstory.org/artist-kruger-barbara.htm

Meeting with David - Proposal Form Feedback

Today I had a meeting with David regarding the feedback I was given on my proposal form. I mainly wanted to discuss how I can create a more theoretical methodology which is not just based on the appearance of my project as well as explain that I do not want to base my topic too heavily around the idea of the critique of social media - as it is more about the effects of using the advanced technology on the users.

We discussed any issues we felt necessary and I was able to explain my idea more in depth to David for further feedback. As I will be creating a campaign I explained my ideas for my posters and moving image ad from which David was able to suggest 2 artists for me to look at which can help influence the theme and overall look of my campaign - who are Barbara Kruger and Ken Lum.

For my methodology I will complete primary research by interviewing technology users and asking them a series of questions regarding changes they made have made to their general behaviour due to the technology use. This is to get an idea of how many people it affects and what ways it affects people. I may also create a survey for anonymous completion for other accurate results.

I will also follow someone around for 2 days - one day with all the technology they use and one day without it - to see how they do things differently - and use this research to create a moving image sequence to show the differences.

I will be completing secondary research also to find published articles and books which are to do with this same subject and evaluate the research I find to create a successful campaign which gets the message across - which is showing people how much technology really does affect user's lives.

After this meeting with David I felt any queries had been cleared up and I felt confident I had addressed the critical points in my feedback of my proposal form.

Feedback on Proposal Form - Version 1

Today I have received feedback on my first proposal which I submitted. The feedback is from David and the main points are as follows:


- Interesting area of research should provide rich material for a creative project.

- Methodology is more concerned with the overall appearance of the project, does not seem well designed practically, to make the discoveries I am looking for.

- How does giving my project a brand identity help achieve my results?

- Contradiction between the idea of a brand identity and forming a critique of social media. Resolve this contradiction.

- Create a brand identity within social media which somehow functions to question the processes of social media and how they affect the way we interact with each other.


After receiving this feedback I feel like talking to David in person to discuss how I can resolve this contradiction in a professional way and progress my idea.

Proposal Form - Version 1

This is my proposal form, which I have submitted today. Within this document, it explains my overall idea for my project and covers an outline of my research question and also my methodology. 

My project is about the advancements in technology and how it affects general human behaviour and social interaction.
I will be creating a multi-media campaign to represent my findings and create awareness for this topic.

My Research Question is: How does the advance in new technology (specifically smartphones) affect real life social interaction and general human behaviour? (Or it will be something very similar to this).

I will be using practice based research as well as creative (testing) research to answer my question which is explained more in depth within my proposal document above.

Powerful Images - Smartphones

These are some very strong and and dynamic images which I came across, again on social media. I believe they are extremely relevant to my topic and give off very powerful messages about how smartphones 'are taking over your life' and harming people. 

The first image could be classed as slightly unpleasant or distressing, however I very much like the concept of this image. It shows a woman with a phone by her ear, with legs or claws either side of it, I think to look like a spider or some kind of insect - with the idea that the phone has its own features or a mind of its own which can cause harm to its user. This example if quite extreme but most definitely shows the great concept behind it.

The second image shows a man looking down at his phone with a broken / snapped neck. This is over-exaggerated but I definitely think this metaphorically gives off a strong message about health which is how you can seriously damage your neck by constantly looking down at a device.

The third image is based on one of the things that can be accessed via the use of a smartphone which is social media. Although the idea of the image is that the phone is wired in to someone's arm like the information is immediately going straight in to the users body and like it cannot be removed. This image highlights the addiction to technology. 

I like all of these images but will most likely not use something like this for my campaign as it could be seen as a bit extreme or intense.

Inspiring Images - Smartphones

These are 2 images which I have come across via social media, which I think are very strong and powerful images and represent the addiction to technology in 2 completely different ways.

These images will inspire me in development of my topic and idea and influence decisions I may make in regards to my visual campaign.

The first image metaphorically portrays how people are so addicted to using their smartphone and having it in their hand constantly its as if it has been chained to them like they can never put it down. This image is very simple and looks like a sketch however has a very powerful meaning to it.

The second image is of a queue of 6 different people who are all looking down at their mobile phones. This reinforces the idea no matter what age or gender a person is, every single one of them are still using a phone in the exact same situation rather than doing anything else other than this.

Advanced Project - Ideas for Topic / Proposal

This is my idea for my topic for my Advanced Project. It will be about Advancements in Technology & Addiction to Technology. 

Here I have brainstormed firstly what my idea should be - a relevant social issue, and how I will present my work at the end of the project.

Secondly, I have brainstormed what sort of people technology affects in different way and the general effects technology has on people. 

In the top section I have brainstormed what sorts of things you can do mainly on a smartphone as this is a piece of technology which most people seem to have and would be the main object I would use my project around.

I have also briefly touched on the media platforms I have considered using for my final outcome.