#wicked problem

Stigma Around Mental Health 

I suffer from anxiety and depression and I have heard all of the examples above. Would someone treat a physical illness like that? Well no, it would be ridiculous. So why do we treat mental health like this?

In order to understand how to fix such a mess of existential threats, it’s first important to notice what they all have in common from a sociological perspective. They’re all what you might call global downsizers. These problems are already directly impacting the ease with which our species can extract wealth from its environment. It’s getting harder and therefore more expensive to catch fish, grow crops, raise animals, beat diseases, or handle weather.

Houston, we have a problem.

Debió ser noche sin luna de un verano por Ituzaingó, con mucha humedad, y ya no sé cómo pero nuestro alrededor se llenó de luciérnagas, en mi recuerdo son muchísimas más está claro, miles de motitas de luz que giran en mi memoria regresándome la felicidad de ese momento, de la Argentina que me tocó vivir.

Sucede que hay días que desciendo al inframundo, en donde todo lo que se iba se regresa y…

Images from Google’s Digital Wellbeing page.

Visual Diary 13: A “Wellbeing” Find

For this week’s visual diary topic, I circled back to the wicked problem that I have been focusing on this semester for my Design Leadership class: social engagement and disengagement for mobile devices. There are mobile apps and minimalist phones with the design strategy to strip away distraction but that meant downloading another app or taking an additional step to get people to want to get another phone. A mobile device is merely a tool to assist people in their daily lives rather than stealing attention away from the life they live. My stake in the ground is to leverage the device to combat this wicked issue. Thus, it led me to look further into what mobile systems are doing to design against distractions for the wellbeing of their users.

Google takes on the responsibility to their users in this wicked problem with their Digital Wellbeing program. They focus on “creating tools and features to help people better understand their tech usage, focus on what matters most, disconnect when needed, and create healthy habits for the whole family (Google Wellbeing). A few features designed with intentionality worth mentioning are the App Timers to set limits on app usage, Do Not Disturb to hide all notifications, Family Link to manage apps your kids use, Google Wifi’s schedule internet breaks, and the Android Auto as mentioned in a previous visual diary post. In addition, users could use the gesture of flipping the phone face down to turn on Do Not Disturb, unfortunately this is only available with the Pixel 3 (Google Support). 

Wicked Problem: Obesity

After just doing an easy Google search, I came across an organization called the National Alliance on Mental Illness. On their webpage, there is an article called “9 Ways To Fight Mental Health Stigma” by Laura Greenstein. Their recommendation to help fight stigma is: talk openly about mental health, educate yourself and others, be conscious of language, encourage equality between physical and mental illness, show compassion for those with mental illness, choose empowerment over shame, be honest about treatment, let the media know when they’re being stigmatizing, and don’t harbor self-stigma.