Research Log 4

Research Log #4 - Solutionary Project 2020
Date: Feb. 27, 2020

Name: Dane Hansen
Essential Question: How does depression affect society?

Three Points to Prove: #1: Social media is a major contributor in a rise in depression.
#2: The rise of technology has led to an increase in depression and
suicide, but can also be a helpful tool to counter them.
#3: By feeling a real human connection, those suffering from depression
can feel reassured.

Point that this Source Proves: #1: Social media is a major contributor in a rise in depression.
Excerpts (These should provide insight into the Point to Prove):
“I do see a connection between teen depression and social media in my practice.”
“Society has been gradually darkened by this scheme in which everyone is under surveillance all
the time and everyone is under this mild version of behavior modification all the time. It’s made
everyone moody and cranky and has made teens depressed which can be really severe.”
“The short term dopamine-driven feedback loops that we have created are destroying how
society works.”
“If I’m feeling down, I’ll look at [Social Media] and they’ll just make it worse. Or I might be
fine and then I’ll look at social media and then like plateau and get really anxious anout how I
look or what I’m doing, what I’m not doing.”
Analysis (How does this source support the Point to Prove?):
I think this documentary was very insightful. It opened my eyes to how much time I
really spend on social media on a daily basis and how harmful it could be to my mental health.
The documentary went in depth on how social media algorithams are designed to be addictive
because, after all, social media companies are businesses and the more time you spend on social
media, the more they profit. The documentary explains how, when first created, social media was
made as an alternate for face-to-face conversations, but now has completely taken over and real
social interaction is viewed as a competitor for them. Through the use of addiction based
algorithams, social media has become a source for hate speech, fake news, and cyber bullying.
The documentary explains how social media makes people feel worthless. Since there are
so many people on social media, you feel tiny in comparison. Also, they put the number of how
many “friends” or “followers” out there for everyone to see. This makes you constantly want to
get more followers and get more likes. Although we all know it’s not that significant, we also
really care about what our precense looks like online. We care about what the comments say or
how many likes a picture gets because they make us feel better about ourselves. On the other
hand, hurtful comments have the power to really hurt someone to the point where they think
about hurting themselves or even others. By promoting negativity and being controversial, social
media has provided an easier way for people to verbally bully others.
On social media, people are more likely to confront you and degrade you than they are in
real life. People are more likely to tease others because it makes them feel like they have power.
Also, they are protected by a screen and feel like you can’t do anything back to them. Since
social media puts your social status out there for everyone to see, it also creates a superficial
enviornment where you constantly compare yourself to others who have more followers than
you. This can cause you to judge yourself and question even the most basic things you do
causing you to lose confidence.

Work Cited (correct MLA format):
Grannon, Richard. “PLUGGED IN : The True Toxicity of Social Media Revealed.” Youtube, 23
Jan. 2019, www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHzwMLx-rKc.
This is a reputable and reliable article because, Richard Grannon studied phycology and

trained under Richard Bandler, the co-developer of Neuro-Linguistic Programming. He is also
well known online for being a life coach and putting out content to help many different people
through Youtube.
Student Journal 3
As a group, we collaboratively created the idea to help temporarily reduce student’s stress
and hopefully depression. We want to post funny memes that are popular between teens among
the country that many of our classmates find humorous. If the student laughs, serotonin will be
released into the brain calming and improving their mood. We are still debating whether to create
a scavenger hunt with food at the end of the tunnel by having QR codes to scan that gives a hint
to the next meme. So far, we have created both a written proposal and proposal video. The
written proposal highlights what we hope to accomplish with our project and how we aim to get
there. Since stress has become more and more common within schools especially, our idea to
post memes around school is aimed around making students laugh. In our video, we talked about
how common depression has become in our society and how we plan to combat it with laughter
within our school.
Personally, I’ve still just been doing research. But I came across a ted talk that gave me
an idea that we could implement into our scavenger hunt. It would provide a texting hotline
where people could annonymously open up about their struggles. It would be like that so victims
wouldn’t be afraid to talk. Another idea was to make it an automated text message chain that
sends them memes every day and it would give them a place to reach out at the same time. Since
teens are already on their phones and sending texts, they would be more willing to send one more
opening up about their struggles while staying anonymous. Overall as a group, we’ve been doing
research into different components of depression. My research focuses on the causes and effects
of depression, in particular, technology as a cause and how we could use technology to also help
counter depression. I also thought that for community service we could help out at a place where
we interact with those suffering from depression and hopefully make them feel better.

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Research Log #4 - Solutionary Project 2020

Date: Feb. 27, 2020

Excerpts (These should provide insight into the Point to Prove):

“I do see a connection between teen depression and social media in my practice.”

Analysis (How does this source support the Point to Prove?):

This is a reputable and reliable article because, Richard Grannon studied phycology and

within our school.

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