Process of the White Paper
When creating the white paper, I had to think in a way that required my full, undivided attention. In today’s world of social media and technology, it’s so easy to get distracted. However, this white paper forced me to not just reiterate the research, but also provide my own perspective and takeaways. As a college student, this is something I don’t do very often.
The topic of finding focus and how social media distracts us provided me with a ton of insight into my own daily habits. Personally, my biggest challenges are predicting how long a project or assignment will take and stopping myself from scrolling on social media. However, writing this paper helped me see that being distracted by social media isn’t just me. It is something millions of people struggle with.
When I first started the paper, I looked back at my blog posts and class notes to think about common themes I found in my research and key takeaways. From there, I started to outline my ideas and create a list of which topics and discussions should go into which category. By organizing the modules and reviewing the content in chronological order, I was able to create an outline that summarized all my thoughts, ideas and research into one cohesive paper.
To create the white paper, I used Canva to organize the aesthetic and create graphics. As I wrote my paper, I ensured every paragraph had a purpose and I tried to make every word count. I did this by thinking of the bigger topic and breaking it down into subcategories. For example, when writing the problem, I broke down topics that were most significant to me from the research I found such as the science behind dopamine, social media’s negative effects on mental health and how social media can limit work productivity. Essentially, I allowed my train of thought to flow and carry my way through writing. For each page, I put in graphics as I went based on the statistics I found would be most impactful and powerful for the reader. I kept asking myself, “what will make this paper influential for those who are addicted to social media and naïve of the consequences?” Doing this allowed me to dive deeper into my research and find more evidence to back up my statements.
When working on the history that led to our addiction to social media, I saw there are many factors. However, the parts that I found were most significant were the increase in social media use down through time, discuss the year when millions of people started using social media and the creation and impact of the “infinite scroll.” I was very surprised to find the creator of the infinite scroll was the other co-founder of The Center for Humane Technology. This made me feel my research and studies came in full circle. It was interesting to see how the creator of the infinite scroll didn’t think about the negative impacts it could have on people until it started happening. He co-founded The Center for Humane Technology to help mitigate the damage.
Writing the solution, benefits and call-to-action came naturally as I found plenty of evidence in my research and also had personal experiences. I wrote about data detox as there are a lot of studies on it and my personal experience and data helped back up my research as well. What was most important in making the paper persuasive was including side effectsof social media and the benefits of data detox most people can relate to. I figured this out by looking at my research and statistics to see what impacts people the most and what they feel prevents them from staying focused. According to Hari, stress is the number one cause people say limits their focus. Based on that, I picked out the benefits of social media detoxing that would help people reduce their stress and the consequences of social media that affect sleep habits, mental health and more that could potentially produce more stress.
Overall, writing this white paper allowed me to reflect on how social media doesn’t just affect society, but also my own daily habits. It was interesting to see how it can affect everyone. However, it has also made me more aware of how I utilize my productivity, energy and screen time. Hopefully, readers can feel the same way and acquire insight on how to better manage a tech-life balance in a world full of social media.
Featured Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay