This week’s tutorial is very important to me. Until now I have felt very burdened by the use of blogs, I was afraid that the ideas and thoughts I uploaded to the web would not be ‘perfect’ enough to be seen by others. As the results of the previous questionnaire were not what I had expected, the number of Gen-Zs experiencing FOMO as a result of social media was only a very small percentage, the more information I gathered the more uncertain I became about the relevance of my project.  I was thinking of changing my question to how to use social media to help Gen-Z with their mental health. Or how to help Gen-Z stay away from social media?

Because I studied design as an undergraduate, it made me accustomed to focusing on subjective feelings when I was working on my previous projects. The stress of delving into social media caused the project to stagnate and I entered a vicious circle. Luckily, my tutor reminded me that this was a research-led project and that I needed to observe the data and behaviours from a more objective point of view, which helped me to get a clearer picture.

I didn’t get good feedback on either of the two new questions I asked, and I agree that they were too hasty. I was advised to either drop the social media topic altogether or keep the previous one. For a moment I was tempted by the new topic, but I didn’t think I had enough time and energy for a completely new project. So in the end I decided to keep the question, and now that I’m back in China I have more access to the stakeholder, and I’ll be gathering information from an objective point of view.