Senior Research Book by Elyse Clark

MY MENTAL

HEALTH BOOK

Featured Topics:

∙Mental Health ∙Marketing/Designing for Millennials & Centennials ∙Mental Health Programs

MY MENTAL HEALTH BOOK

MY MENTAL

HEALTH BOOK Writen and Edited by Elyse Clark Cover and Book Design by Elyse Clark Images from Various Sources

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Printed in the United States of America

TABLE OF CONTENTS

- Page 10

INTRODUCTION

- Page 14

SECTION ONE

- Page 32

SECTION TWO

- Page 48

SECTION THREE

- Page 60

PROJECT PROPOSAL

INTROD

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UCTION

INTRODUCTION Welcome to the wonderful world of mental health. Today we’ll be talking about how all these chapters can come together to create my book; my mental health book. If you choose to follow the journey through my mind, you’ll see that I am not a linear worker at all. My topics bounce around all over the place but still holds strong on the theme of mental illness, creating successful design, and programs that work.

I ease you into my collection with my first chapter “Ted Talks to me,” talking about how mental illness can affect your brain, I then go into a personal story of an illness, bipolar disorder to be more specific in “Personal Bipolar.” The woman in the story was unaware she even had any disorder for such a long period of her life. Before then she was just going through her life, knowing something was wrong, but not knowing what it was or how to fix it. The next chapter, “DTCA’s and Stigma” relates DTCA’s or Direct to consumer ads, and how they’ve reduced stigmas and led some to want to get mental health help. Chapters four and five, “Logic Wins” and “Program Reviews” was my reflection on reflections of programs offered in the mental health world that have either worked well or not so much. Steamrolling on top of those two chapters follows with chapter six and seven, “#Truth” and “Reach Out!”. Two more programs that have to do with getting the correct information out there for the general public to absorb and become more aware of the problems in the world. For example, smoking with the Truth campaign, and Reach Out! Which was an Australian program created for those who need easy to find resources. I also placed chapters eight, nine, and ten together; “Millennial Design,” “Centennial Design,” and “How to Design.” Just as they sound, these chapters talk about the kinds of things that Millennials and Centennials want regarding marketing, branding, and advertisements that are directed towards them.

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How being more aware of what elements we use to market to the younger crowd. Improved UX/UI design is a big thing, having social media components, and more transparency between the consumer and the marketer were key aspects millennials and centennials were drawn to. All of these chapters come together in the segments I have written them in, to create a proposed project proposal. My Senior project, at this point, is to be centered around mental health, and using the knowledge Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve acquired about that topic through creating my chapters. Understanding how these illnesses affect people, mainly millennials and centennials, and trying to erase stigmas and ignorance surrounding mental health. By understanding what kind of design and tactics work the best for marketing to a specific audience, I want to create some interactive and/or immersive experience for my audience to really know what itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s like to suffer, and from that want to either get help, or give help to those they might know who suffer. The chapters are an excellent way for me to organize different aspects of what Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m going to need for my senior project into these little sections. It also allows me to see what content I have, then figure out what I need to progress further with my project and look for that information. My book is a combination of generals and specifics about mental health, design, and various mental health programs around the world. It gives you a little taste of all of these subjects, as I reflect on the specific source I have taken from and how I think they can help me regarding my senior project in the next semester. I hope you enjoy reading through my rants and ravings about a subject I care about deeply.

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ON ONE

CHAPTER ONE: TED TALKS TO ME

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I picked this source because I wanted to find something on mental illness that wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t just some long boring scientific article thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s roughly 35 pages long that I have no intention in having to read, at least not for my first chapter. I found instead this Ted Talk titled Toward a New Understanding of Mental Illness, which right away had my subject name in the title, so I knew there was a good chance this video would do it for me. The Ted Talk in my opinion is already for a specified type of audience, one who is interested in T.E.D, or technology, entertainment, and design as the name suggests. For this talk specifically, I think could be for a wider range of audience, definitely ones interested in mental health and how itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s affecting people in the world today. Thomas, the author of the talk uses a lot of statistics and factual based information to talk about how illnesses affect people everyday, which would appeal to people both in a more scientific field and those just curious as to what his opinion on this topic is. The Ted talk talks about a couple disorders including depression, and PTSD, but it mainly focuses on schizophrenia and what that developmentally does to the brain. Thomas talks in a positive way about all the sciences and research that has gone into finding out how these illnesses affect the brain and why, he says that he wants people to have a better understanding after hearing his talk.

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Thomas Insel was the Director of the National Institute of Mental Health from 2002-2015, he is a Neuroscientist and a psychiatrist. He’s known for his research on peptide hormones in social behaviors. In May of 2017 he co-founded and is the president of Mindstrong Health, which is a detection center for neuropsychiatric disorders, and tries to find the best way of treatment and education for people who suffer from these types of disorders. Thomas has written over 200 published scientific articles, and has four books published on his findings and studies. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine and has been recognized multiple times for his work, so basically, he really knows his stuff. This talk is from 2013, so four almost 5 years have passed since this information came out, so I’m sure there’s been updates and new findings on this information. Although, at the same time, all the information he presented was accurate and still relevant today as it was then, perhaps even more so too. I think this talk is very valuable considering all the information presented, and Thomas’s own personal view on the topic. 20

I wasn’t sure what exactly this ted talk is going to talk about, and if it would be a good source for me because it was a Ted talk, but after watching it, I was able to appreciate the new information I learned about these disorders and how they affect the brain. My topic is about mental disorders and how they impact daily life for people; and in his talk he references how many people are affected by illnesses around the country, and how many people it actually is. As Thomas stated in his video, “30 percent of all disability from all medical causes can be attributed to mental disorders, neuropsychiatric syndromes.” (Insel 3:40), he comments on how early these kinds of disorders start in people. I found myself watching the talk very engaged and agreeing with most everything he said, the complexity of the human brain and how each individual with a certain illnesses brain is going to be so different from someone else. But also connected in certain ways because of recurring signs in the brain that scientists how found as a commonality between people who suffer from diseases like this.

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He went most in-depth about schizophrenia, which I don’t want to specifically focus on in particular, but it was good to learn about how observing someone’s brain with that disorder, you can see how it varies from someone brain developing who doesn’t suffer from it. I have had a fascination with mental disorders for some time now, and knowing how they affect each person, and how they live their lives. I have written, and researched the different types of disorders, and the more I learn about them, the more interested in them I get.

CHAPTER TWO: PERSONAL BIPOLAR

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I found this article searching around the web using key terms relating to my topic, and since it had a more personal story about someone who lived with a mental illness, it seemed like a good article to stop and read. The article is posted on the Huffington Post, it’s not too long and does include sources to relating mental health websites, for example, there are a couple in text links to NIH or the National Institute of Mental Health. The Huffington Post is an online newspaper/news source that is for a general audience that is interested in what’s going on in the world, possibly without going as in depth as the New York Times might.

I always enjoy reading about personal stories of those who suffer from mental illnesses; I think it’s a better resource than reading through long, drawn out articles filled with numbers and statistics. That kind of reading is quite informative, but it’s not personable, it doesn’t show you what these people are feeling, and the personal notion, I think I learn more through personal stories. The Huffington Post is a pretty bias source in general; they usually tend to lean more towards the left, liberal side of the world. More specifically, the article I read, is biased in the way that they want to spread awareness and prevention in the world of mental disorders, but if I do say so myself, I believe a bias, in this case, is a good thing. The author Paul Heroux takes interest in what he is writing about to let the reader be more informed. Paul Heroux is an American Politician who is the State Representative from Massachusetts. He is most strongly focused on crime prevention, housing for

homeless, and decreasing mental illness stigmas. He has three Master’s in three different areas, Public Administration, Internal Relations, and Criminology, and a Bachelor’s in Psychology from 4 different Universities. His successes as State Representative include things like; funding for school infrastructures, funding for mental health legal advisors, and having money added to the budget for Horizons for Homeless Children. He cares a lot about these kinds of issues and spends his life dedicated to trying to fix them, including issues surrounding mental health. The article was written in 2013, but because it was a recollection of a personal story, and because the mental illness he was discussing, Bipolar Disorder is still very much prevalent today as it was four years ago, I believe this source is just as current. The disorder hasn’t changed, and people’s experiences are always going to be slightly different for each person, but relatively the same, same symptoms, same disorder. As I said before, I believe that reading more personal stories about disorders is a better way to learn about them and understand them, rather than reading purely academic sources so in that way, it’s already relevant to me. I don’t know as much about bi-polar disorder as much as I do about some of the other ones, so reading about Jane’s story was informative to me. Her story about how she lived her life as functioning as she could with this disorder was interesting to read about, how she lived for so long not knowing what was happening to her or what her true diagnosis was.

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A lot of people have misconceptions about how much disorders can affect your life, but also how high functioning people can be while living with something like that. Either because they are ashamed to tell anyone because they are afraid of being judged like Jane from this article was, afraid to tell her son’s school, because she didn’t want her complaints to be pushed aside, or they might not know they have anything in the first place, also like Jane. People with stories like hers are good because it just shows how little awareness to topics like these people have, and the amount of stigma still attached to having a disorder. This kind of thing can negatively impact those who suffer, sometimes so much so that they feel they have nowhere to go, they don’t belong, which is not the case, they just don’t know that there’s help out there for them to find.

CHAPTER THREE: DTCAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S AND STIGMA

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This source was more of a draw from a hat than a planned out source, if I’m honest, I was looking through an online database using the keywords ‘Mental Health Stigma’ and came across this one that related that to PSA and marketing for awareness for disorders, so I thought it might be an interesting read. Because it is a database article and has research and facts driving it, I’d say this is easily a more academic source more than recreational or entertainment, the only people reading this study are the ones who care very specifically about issues relating to mental disorders and stigmas and marketing.

This article was a pretty interesting find, discussing how DTCA or direct to-consumer advertising is creating a better awareness of different medications and treatments for mental disorders, but there is also concern that these kinds of ads can further stigmatize disorders by creating more of a disconnect between those who have them and those who don’t. And how different studies would show different results of that notion. The article seemed pretty unbias for the most part, more concerned with trying to show the facts and statistics they found as a result of their different studies, rather than being opinionated on what the author and the other people who participated thought. The author of the article is Patrick Corrigan, Psy.D., distinguished professor of Psychology at the Illinois Institute of Technology. He has also been a professor of Psychiatry and Executive Director of the Center for Psychiatric Rehab at the University of Chicago. Also, in the past, he was the principal investigator of the Chicago Consortium for Stigma Research, the only NIMH-funded research center for mental illness stigma. He’s had 11 books published and over

250 papers; he is also the editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Psychiatric Rehab. I don’t think there should be any question as to how qualified this man is to talk about mental health, if anything, he’s overqualified. This article, published in 2014, which isn’t too old/noncurrent from things of today. I feel that if these same studies were conducted today, the data wouldn’t change too drastically from the result they received in 2014. It was interesting to read how DTCAs influenced both the general public and people who have mental disorders. The study involved getting both of those two groups, showing them ads depression medication and seeing how the participants reacted to the ad, whether they felt more inclined to offer or seek help after watching. The results were pretty split, with one side feeling like they didn’t want to offer help after watching, while the others felt they’d be more inclined to help or get help. I had never thought about the impact that these medications that play on tv for anti-depressants or others could potentially have either a negative or positive affect on people. Thinking about my personal thoughts on them though, I feel that those advertisements sometimes romanticize illness as these glamourous things and that if you take their medication you will be walking on sunshine and playing team sports, which isn’t necessarily the case. So, I guess I would be in the group that thinks ads like those make mental illness look like nothing to worry about, so why care about it? Which is exactly the opposite attitude to have towards the subject of mental health and illness, the idea should be to want to create as much awareness to help get proper treatment

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for those who need it, not furthering the thought that it isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t important or worth having interest in. The more stigmas that are placed around mental disorder, the more people wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t come forward to get the help they need.

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ON TWO

CHAPTER FOUR + FIVE: 34

LOGIC WINS + PROGRAM REVIEWS

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These next two chapters I wanted to focus strictly on the awareness aspect of mental illness, I think that’s where I want my topic to narrow down to, and relating this to my senior project most likely. This source is an article I found on CNN, about the rapper Logic’s new song, and what it’s doing in the world of mental health. I wanted to talk about his performance because his intentions for the song and the performance he did at the VMA’s was to bring awareness to people who need help and haven’t been able to find it. The article’s main focus was on how the song had created a spike in callers to the suicide hotline, “1-800-273-8255” which is both the song title and the number for the hotline. This type of article is pretty general audience, anyone who is interested in Logic, and/or suicide awareness and prevention. The article includes both the author’s notes, and quotes from logic, and John Draper, the director of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. CNN is a news source, so anyone who is interested in current events would probably be interested in reading.

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The position this article takes is a bit of an obvious one because it’s talking about how more people have been calling in to the hotline because of the song and artist, so it is all on the positive side and complete favor of that outcome. Ben Tinker, the author, gives more of an informative perspective on how he is telling the events. Ben is a supervising producer for CNN Health, and works with CNN Chief Medical Correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Tinker has worked for over three years producing CNN’s weekly health and wellness show, and is a regular contributor to CNN Health. He’s received a New York Festival award for his documentary on Dementia, and also received an Alfred L. DuPont-Columbia University award. He has dual degrees in journalism and psychology from New York University. His background is mostly in writing and research so he has a bias of his own, but in terms of this article it seems more

objective and subjective for his point of view. The article was written a little less than a month ago, as Logic’s performance happened at the 2017 VMA Awards, so the information almost couldn’t be anymore current. Also, as mentioned before, the director of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline talks in the article about what the song has done for the lifeline, calls to the hotline are up about 33% from last year, and 50% increase directly following Logic’s performance. Very beneficial and current information on statistics, that all is from the awareness to suicide that Logic’s song and performance brought, just in the past month. I thought this article would be a good source for me because it talks about what I want to hone in on, which as stated, is awareness of mental illness. Logic is becoming more and more popular, especially now in 2017 with his

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suicide prevention song, and album, and he has been public about struggling with mental illness himself. He understood that he has a following, and has heard from fans that have told him that his music has saved them, so he used that to make a song about suicide prevention for the sole purpose of bringing more awareness to a topic that many are afraid to even touch. As a result, his song did the exact job Logic meant it to do, get more and more people to call the hotline and get help. I’ll say it again, awareness. A quote from the article reads, “John Draper, director of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, said, “The impact has been pretty extraordinary. On the day the song was released, we had the second-highest call volume in the history of our service.” Overall, calls to the hotline are up roughly 33% from this time last year.” These kinds of results that were

achieved from one song are pretty incredible, there are so many different platforms that are currently trying to bring awareness to mental illness, but people are still afraid to get help, so the fact that Logic created this song, and it’s had such a big impact is something to take note of definitely. On the topic of platforms of awareness, I want my senior project potentially to be something that can bring awareness to this topic, I haven’t settled on what form I want the work to be, posters or pamphlets, etc. I do think that being able to have a voice and platform that can inform and help change lives is a very important role that I would like to take as a designer. Making something that matters, something that is both designed well, and has a message to be taken in, if Logic a rapper can do it with a song, why couldn’t I be able to with graphic design? 37

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I Found this article in the ProQuest databases while searching for awareness of mental illness, so this one felt like a good choice. The article served as a way for the authors to conduct literature reviews of all the campaigns around the world that focus on mental health awareness, mainly for depression and suicide, and describe the kind of information that is out there and find out its effectiveness. I like the way the article broke up the different kinds of platforms that there are talking about suicide prevention and awareness and talked about what each one did, and then how much it did or didn’t help in terms of effectively bringing awareness on the depression/ suicide and reducing it. This type of source is definitely geared towards someone who has knowledge of mental illness and its effects, and wants to learn more about the effectiveness of the campaigns targeted to stop them. It is very well researched and reviewed, and has over 78 references, so yeah, it’s pretty informative. The article is filled with the different programs that different countries created to bring awareness and prevention to depression and suicide that the authors, Helene Dumesnil and Pierre Verger researched and reviewed, so the entire article is from their own personal biases. Their studies showed that a lot of these programs have flaws in their thinking and execution, which leads them to be problematic, and the authors felt that, “Efforts should be made to consolidate international expertise and knowledge and develop guidelines to help design programs and their evaluation.” (Dumesnil p. 1211). The information that’s out there could be consolidated and made stronger to provide even more prevention results. The two authors of this review, while having good credentials; a Master of Science and Medical Doctor, have very little information to be found on them. The only thing I could dig up from Dumesnil is that she focuses on public health, qualitative social research, and health psychology. She and Pierre I believe both work for the French Company, the Regional Health Observatory of Provence-Alpes-Cote d’Azur, which is one of 26 Regional Health Observatories, trying to enhance knowledge about the health of the people. This review is in the publication, Psychiatric Services, a peer-reviewed journal that features research on mental Health services. This review was published in 2009, so there’s been a few years of difference, but still decently relevant. In the review, it was

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said that most of these programs did in fact raise awareness on the subject of suicide and depression, what they didn’t do was inspire more people to go and actually seek the help for the most part. I feel that today, more in the last couple years with the continual rise of social media, and technology, it keeps getting easier for companies and people to put these kinds of messages of awareness out there for the general public to see. For example, tying back to my previous chapter, the rapper Logic and his song “1-800-273-8255” was created to bring awareness to suicide and let people know there’s a platform out there to get help, and it was extremely successful, especially after his live performance at a televised award show, calls to the hotline went up significantly. Although I am unsure about what kinds of programs other countries have in today’s current world, I have a strong feeling that for a lot of them, through the rise of social media and technology, they have been given more opportunities to reach out to more people. I thought that this review was a really good chance to see what kinds of programs other countries have in suicide prevention and awareness, and because I know nothing about them, reading these reviews on how effective the authors thought they were, helped me to understand better. A few programs they talked about included; The Defeat Depression Campaign from 1999 in Hong Kong, The Like Minds, Like Mine Project in 1997 in New Zealand, and the Community Awareness Program in 1995 in Australia. All of these programs had to do with informing the public about mental illness, reducing stigmas and change attitudes, and help people understand how to help. Also, interesting to see what a lot of them lack in terms of how successful each of their programs are, only a few of the programs had results that led to an increase

in seeking professional help for their mental health, but most of the programs gave people a good general knowledge on these topics, and lessened social stigmas revolving around mental illness. In terms of my senior project, it’s interesting to know that while I could do what these countries did, like creating billboard campaigns, creating websites, and informational materials, and promote a more general awareness that these illnesses exist, and yes people have them, and yes, we shouldn’t put them down for this, but instead get educated. But on the other hand, looking through the results from these programs, and seeing that not many people took the next step of getting help, or looking to find it for someone they might know who needs it, it’s a bit discouraging. What would I be able to do differently to not only have people learn more information, but then go out and act on it. If the content you’re creating doesn’t do enough to seriously change people’s minds or perceptions, was it really worth creating in the first place. Which seems like a hard thing to answer, because you never know who or if someone will really value the information you put out there for them until you actually make it.

CHAPTER SIX + SEVEN: #TRUTH + REACH OUT!

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This source was actually recommended to me by my peer edit buddy last week. I was talking her through my subject matter and potential senior project, and she suggested that I narrow down who I want the audience of my project to be. We got on the topic of the truth campaign, and how they targeted millennials very heavily, which is seen in their ads and imagery, and I have always liked the truth campaigns, how they market, their language, and most importantly, the fact that what they’re doing is working, it’s effective, and smoking rates have gone down. The Truth is a campaign that is targeted towards my generation, their goal is to make our generation essentially the last one to smoke, their audience ranges from teens to early adult, when people are the most impressionable. Their bias is pretty obvious, smoking is bad, and we need to do what we can to stop it as a such a huge statistic. Everything that the Truth puts out is 100% anti-smoking, and they make that point very clear in their ads and language used. The American Legacy Foundation is the company that created the Truth campaign, founded in 1999, and in 2000 their first add aired nationwide. Robin Koval,has been the CEO and president of the Truth initiative since 2013, and her aim was/is to revamp their program to skyrocket anti-smoking values as much as possible. With a BFA and Masters of Business Administration background, she has made a name for herself as an extremely successful marketing and advertising expert, especially about the things she cares about, the health and well-being of our youth. The Truth campaigns have been praised by the U.S CDC and the U.S Dept. of Health and Human Services, among other things, and has been proven to reduce smoking among young people.

The Truth Initiative is relatively new, only being almost 18 years old, and even newer Is the relaunched Finish It campaign, which aimed to make this the last generation that is smoking. They are always updating, and researching new information to share with the public about smoking companies, and what they’re really trying to do. They are successful in showing this information in current and relevant ways, as to keep their audience engaged and motivated. For this source, I was looking through their entire website, and I read through some articles that talked about the effectiveness of their campaigns, which is what I’m more concerned with. I have always liked the Truth initiative, one because I am very anticigarettes myself, so I follow their message easily, and two, how they’ve gone about their marketing to target a certain age group. They age group they solicit to are millennials. Teens, young people whose attention can be caught and lost rather quickly, so they needed to find the perfect way to get their message across while still being engaging. Right off the bat their website is full of bold, bright type to catch attention, small headlines to keep the audience interested, and very interactive as well. I love how they use a darker website, and then have light, bright, bold colors on top, the contrast is very clear and effective. Their videos on YouTube gain thousands of views in just months, depending on the content of the videos, their more formal ads have millions in a fairly short amount of time as well. I know that 72 and sunny, the creative ad agency is responsible for a lot of their ad work, so I know it’s a collab between Truth and 72 to create these enticing ads, but what’s important to me is how appealing they are, and how effective they are. For my senior project,

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I need to be thinking about what I need to do to make my ads/PSA/ informational work as interesting and appealing to this same age group as possible. I want people to want to look through what I make, learn the information about mental disorders, and want to pass them on to person after person spreading awareness as much as possible. Color seems to be a big part of their strategy, short and bold headlines, and using things from today’s culture like meme are the three main points of focus the Truth initiative utilizes the best, and that’s what’s working for them. What I also like about the Truth, is the amount of information they put up for their viewers to be able to see, you guessed it, the truth about the real world of smoking. On their main website, they have a facts tab, which just has a bunch of small facts about smoking, and each fact has the corresponding source clear in view, and on their initiative website, they have an entire research tab dedicated to all the research that their company is doing, as recent as this past August, you can even see who the people researching are, and of course, sources.

The entire company is a perfect way for us millennials to get more information in a fun, interesting way, I applaud the company’s successful tactics in getting their facts and message across. I am probably going to be using them as a reference in the way they do things, later when I’m thinking of what exactly I’m going to be doing for my senior project.

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REACH OUT! Staying on the topic of looking at how branding and advertisements are responded to by the targeted groups from the previous chapter; where I looked at the Truth campaign, and I talked about how successful I thought they were in reaching their target audience of teens. How effective their strategies were for getting their message through. Learning the results from some of their ads have been extremely well received and acknowledged, so much so that the rate of smoking is down more than it ever has been, and continues to go down. This source is a bit different, it has to deal with how technology in general can/may improve mental health in young people. I’d say this article is perfect for people like me, interested in these two topics and how they intertwine with one another, it’s research and study based, someone looking to find a scholarly take on this topic would be one to read something like this. There’s plenty of references and cited resources in this article, it’s plenty reliable in my opinion. The article is talking about the relevancy of the informational services out there for teens who need mental health help, but don’t seek it. And how because of this problem, the available services aren’t able to be as successful as they could be, with more recognition and awareness of the topic. From that, the realization that more effective marketing strategies are much needed. The author, Jonathan is obviously in favor of having these services for teens, being a founder of the Reach Out! Program that this

article talks about. He is hopeful for what kind of impact we can have on these teens when they have the right tools to help them, help themselves. Jonathan Nicholas is one of the original members who created ReachOut! In Australia, with a child psychology and human rights background, and a Master’s in Public Health and Honours Degree in Psychology. He became the CEO of Inspire Foundation, and is responsible for the increasing number of young people who seek help every year from ReachOut!, he truly cares about the health and well-being of these teens, and has put quite a lot of time and effort doing so. Because Reach Out is an Australian based company, it’s hard to relate the currency to the types of effectiveness that the services that America provides, but I instead look at how effective it worked in its actual location of Australia. The article was written in 2010, so it makes a lot of sense that there would be a lot of updated information since it came out, more findings, and program research has been done since then. I did, go on the Reach Out website to see how current and relevant it was, after finding the Discussion section, I saw that a lot of the forums had thousands of posts on each, and a lot of them had been last posted in as recent as a few hours from when I’m currently writing this. Clearly this program is and has been successful enough to continue engagement from the teens they are reaching out to. This article and the Reach Out website have proven to be quite helpful to me, especially relating this all back to my potential senior project. The article talked about all the components to their site, and how each section worked to really fit with what teens would want and need. A particularly interesting find in the article was where they were talking about

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how they designed the website, “Reach Out! has consciously sought to develop a brand that young people in Australia trust… First, by developing advertising campaigns that talk directly to young people. Young people work with Reach Out!’s marketing team to ensure that the voice, look and feel of the ads appeal to their age group…” (Nicholas 88). A very smart idea for the company I must say, so often It seems the case that these sites and resources that are meant for this age group of young adults to help them, aren’t made to appeal to them. If it’s a website, it looks cold and static and not engaging, not something that you’d feel more inclined to look into if you’re not interested in what you see right off the bat.

Part of my senior project, for whatever I end up designing, I will ask for opinions from the age group I’m targeting, and see what their trends are. Luckily, I think I want to target a similar age group of young adults, and teens, so I feel more secure in knowing the kinds of things that attract people my age. What I need to focus on for my project that I picked up from this article is to really just make something that is actually wanted and is easily accessed and promoted well. If I want to bring awareness on mental health, then I need to make sure that my content is out there for the world to see. Also how influential technology and social media has really become in our society, and how it can help me promote what I want to faster and more efficiently, as also proved by the success from the Reach Out website that showed statistics in the percentage increase of teens who repeat visited the site, and/or reached out to get more help after being on the website.

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SECTION

M Y M E NTAL H E ALTH BOOK

N THREE

CHAPTERS EIGHT-TEN: MILLENNIAL DESIGN + CENTENNIAL DESIGN + HOW TO DESIGN

SE CTION TITLE

CH AP T ER EIG H T

So, I found myself foraging for sources as I had run out of my prepared sources and wasn’t sure where to go from there essentially. I decided I should look into designing for millennials and see if that got me anywhere useful. And I’d say that the Wired article I found on how millennials have influenced design turned out to be pretty informative indeed. Wired is a magazine for those who are technologically inclined and interested, so it’s a pretty open for all kind of magazine, not scholarly, but definitely still informed and relevant in today’s world. I think it’s a mixture of a professionals that write articles and contribute to the magazine, and also popular because of how widespread and appealing to the general public it is.

Also, as a millennial, it’s always a fun balance of being offended when reading about millennials, because I believe we get a lot of strife that we don’t deserve. Although, at the same time, we are such a different generation, especially in comparison to the generations before us. We evolved with technology, we are the technological generation, so essentially everything technological that is realized in this day and age, is going to probably be catered towards us, because we’re the ones who grew up with it, so we know it the best. This article is actually fairly bias against us millennials, at least in the way that the author, Wobbrock takes the side of ‘the technology obsessed zombies’ that millennials are known for. He does though, understand the meaning behind our behaviors, and how technology is affecting us as a generation and as a population. Jake Wobbrock, PH.D. is a professor at the University of Washington for research in human computer interaction(HCI). He looks to scientifically understand how people interact with technology and information, and then be able to improve those interactions using design and engineering. Jake is someone who is really fascinated by the constantly evolving nature of technology and humans together, so he is the perfect source for someone looking into how they interact, his knowledge is key.

M Y M E NTAL H E ALTH BOOK

CH AP T ER EIG H T

The article, however written in 2015, is still just as current as it was then, just the technologies itself have evolved. Especially since he isn’t talking about a specific technology in particular, which would date this article more, instead what needs to be done to keep millennials engaged, as the world keeps evolving to be more technologically savvy.

This little article was a nice breath of fresh air as weird as that might sound, but it’s true to me. The language was clear, concise, and easy to understand and It both informed me and reassured me details about how to design for millennials. He talked about in the article what designing for millennials in today’s world means. For example, having a UX/UI interface design for a website or app that is very easily navigable and straightforward is probably the best way to attract the most attention of millennials. Jake states,

“Forexample, example,current currentresearch research “For showsthat thatif ifa aconsumer consumerhas has shows questionand andanananswer answerisn’t isn’t a aquestion immediatelyavailable, available,more morethan than immediately halfwill willabandon abandontheir theirpurchases purchases half thespot. spot.Therefore, Therefore,the thefuture future ononthe engagingthese theseusers usershinges hingesonon ofofengaging providingfast, fast,efficient efficientwebsite website providing self-serviceoptions optionsthat thatgive give self-service millennialsanswers answersatattheir their millennials fingertips.”(Wobbrock). (Wobbrock). fingertips.” Us as millennials want fast, and we want now, and we want to feel like we have the power when we are online. The best way to go about designing for that client is making sure that all the most crucial information of what you’re trying to say should be easily locatable.

Another tool that millennials have is the power of influence, we are social media fiends, if we have a problem with a company or product, we are not afraid to express how we feel online. With that kind of power, we hold a lot of influence over these companies and products, we have the power to make or break them, and they know that. As a result, they design things to appease us, and the cycle continues. If anything, this article helped me understand how incredibly difficult attempting to design something functional and appealing is really going to be.

M Y M E NTAL H E ALTH BOOK

CH AP T ER N IN E

CENTENNIAL DESIGN For my last couple chapters I thought I might as well keep looking into this whole realm of designing for millennials. Also, who they are as a demographic in general, might as well learn more about it. This study seems like it would be for a pretty specific audience, of someone who is looking to learn about media and young people’s influences. That being said, it definitely doesn’t fall short in the facts and research aspect, as it appears to be pretty well researched.

This article talks about the generation referred to as ‘centennials’ or as I like to refer to them as, those annoying fucking teenagers who don’t even know how good they even have it in today’s world. It talks about how they use technology and social media, especially comparing to the millennial generation. It brought to attention, “Centennials are “hyper” connected on social media... These individuals may forego typical social situations because they are so completely connected to friends via social media…” (McGorry 1). Unfortunately there isn’t a lot of defined scholarly research on Centennial’s social media habits, but in this article a study was conducted to find out more information. The only bias this article would seem to have would be just knowledge for knowledge sake, there doesn’t seem to be any specific side that the authors Sue and Meghan are taking on this topic. On that note though, Sue McGorry, Ph.D. is a business professor at DeSales University, she has spend a lot of her life in the marketing

field, so this is a topic that is of interest to her. I believe this article is indeed from 2017, so it’s just about as current as they come. It’s nice to have a source this relevant to the current world. Especially with regards to my topic, which involves trends and design styles that are particular to today’s younger generations. Finding good, recently created sources helps me gain more information about what’s going on right now so I can apply it to design and concepting. I learned that a big marketing trend that’s making its rise is video, short and concise. For example, snapchat and Instagram videos are both limited to under 30 seconds. On snapchat, each news outlet that provides content usually has well planned short snaps to get you the information, but while using big type, bright colors, and short time spans. Sue also thought another tool for the future will be, as she puts it, “word of mouth via social”. Or, thinking about how people relay information about new things, trends, viral content to friends and others, what people are likely to share with someone. Reading through this article helped me understand more of the typical information we always here about millennials and centennials. We are the generations consumed by the online world filled with technology, social media, and shorter and shorter attention spans. Content created specifically for this audience needs to get the message across short and easy, but still be bold and bright enough to catch the attention in the first place.

M Y M E NTAL H E ALTH BOOK

HOW TO DESIGN

Keeping on the category of millennials, and researching their technology habits, and how and when they engage with content. Did you know that my generation is slowly taking over the worldsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; population? Soon millennials and the generations under mine are going to outweigh everyone else in terms of both population size and spending power. Because this generation is constantly evolving and changing as to the things that people engage with, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s very hard to do actual research on them. A lot of brands are currently trying to figure out what kinds of things will attract more attention from millennials, but did find a few core values they seem to resonate with.

Things like wanting more transparency, standing out, and being an individual were common themes of my generation.

CH AP T ER T EN

This article is more of a general information for those curious about how to better effectively market to the millennial generation. It does relay a good-sized chunk of information, synopses of various studies and reports that have been conducted. The article doesn’t really seem to have a bias, just like the last chapter, where it was more informational rather than picking a side to take about the topic. The author, Chloe Mason Gray didn’t write the studies that she is commenting on here in this article, but what is hers is the reflection and analysis of the different strategies that the different studies took. Chloe is an online marketer, shes worked as a senior content marketing manager, and has a B.A in Art History from New York University. Published in 2015, only 2 years old, which keeps it to be pretty current, even today still. A lot of the base information about millennials isn’t going to change. For example, our tendency to go for social media, our growth, and the fact that we are who most of the world is marketing towards anyways. Things I picked up from this article were in ideals specific to millennials.

I learned that most millennials will in fact interact with a company’s social media, but only if they get something out of it in return, such as discounts. Our generation wants to be entertained and amused, we’re also very picky on what we want, we’re more likely to engage in something that serves a good purpose and boosts our self-image. 58

Effective branding seems to be the biggest part of any successful marketing campaign of any kind. Making content that is consistent across platforms is really important, easier for people to follow with consistent branding.

M Y M E NTAL H E ALTH BOOK

PROJECT P

M Y M E NTAL H E ALTH BOOK

PROPOSAL

SE N I O R P R O J EC T P R O P O S AL

SENIOR PROJECT PROPOSAL

For my senior project, I knew that I wanted to have my overall focus be on mental health and mental disorders. It’s a subject that I have worked with in the past, and especially over the course of this semester both in my chapter research and in Advanced Image Making. My subject matter for this semester has been preparing me to work on this topic for my focused senior project next semester. Narrowing down my topic even further than the overarching mental health umbrella; I want to investigate the negative stigmas that are placed around mental illness, things like stereotyping an illness a certain way, having prejudices, and even discrimination. The two main types of stigmas that I’ve read about are; social stigma, which is the public’s prejudice attitudes regarding those with mental illnesses, and self-stigma, which is the person who is suffering own negative perceptions about themselves and their illness. And after learning more about what the negative stigmas are; and how they are actively being spread around the country, I want my project to be a part of the solution in erasing the negativity and replacing it with knowledge and empathy. It concerns me how much of the world, mainly the general public is not aware of how complicated the world of mental health is, and how being informed on different illnesses and how they affect people, will help the country overall be more accepting and helpful. Why is this project important to me? Well, other than being a topic that affects approximately 1 in 5 adults in the U.S.—43.8 million, or 18.5%, in a given year. (source: nami.org). I also am one of those five people.

I have been diagnosed with a few mental illnesses that I will share about here. The most prevalent illnesses that I’ve had to work through in my life would be very high anxiety of many different kinds; social anxiety, panic attacks, paranoia, etc., depression, and ADD. I have been taking varying medications, and have been seeing therapists since early high school, so I am fully immersed in the world of mental health. With years of first-hand experience of what they’re like, what they can do to you, and just how fucked up some can make you out of nowhere. I consider myself one of the lucky ones who have supportive family members and friends that I felt comfortable confiding my struggles with, and as a result, I was able to receive the help I needed to live the happier and under control life that I need with little to no problems. The problem is the percentages of people who have disorders and illnesses that aren’t receiving any help for it outweighs the number of those who feel comfortable getting help and talking about what they need. The problem is, that because of social and self-stigmas in this country, more often than not, people aren’t even really aware of what’s going on with them and that it’s not their fault they’re like this, it’s chemical. I, unfortunately, can say that I have had friends who had evident and visible signs of severe depression, and when I asked them if they ever saw a therapist or took meds, and their response was no to both. And to go one step further, having those friends not even think they had depression because they weren’t sure of how complex depression can be. It’s not just feeling sad sometimes; it’s the nagging in your brain that nothing is worth it, you,

M Y M E NTAL H E ALTH BOOK

your life, or anything you’ll do. Mental illness is such a big social issue that does nothing but increase every day, but yet the number of people who are actively searching for help or education isn’t necessarily at the same rate. So you ask me why this project is important to me. And to that I say again, I know the struggles that are faced with illness, and I don’t want anyone to have to go through that alone and think there’s no hope for them out there. I want to be a voice of empathy and education to anyone who doesn’t understand the entire sub-culture that is mental health. Which will hopefully reduce harmful stigmas related to mental illnesses, for example; thinking that people with schizophrenia are all dangerous, or people with eating disorders want to do those things to their bodies out of positive reasoning. These things just aren’t right, and to lump all those who have disorders together is a gross generalization that needs to be shut down. My audience is genuinely and honestly for every single person in the country, and dare I say it, the world. Education about mental illnesses is something that should be taught all over the world; knowledge is power after all. Imagine living in a world that was fully aware that some people have to deal with more overwhelming things then you could imagine, and are still expected to be model citizens while out 24/7. But because that target audience is probably a bit too broad, it makes more sense for me to target those around my age next. I would say starting younger is better when it comes to education, for example, teaching children about sex education starting young will more commonly result in safer sexual experiences later in their life. But with a topic like this, that’s so complex and can be very intense and dark; I think an older audience would be more beneficial to me. Young adults are at a critical

stage in their life, so many different things are happening all at once, that it’s pretty standard for that to be when some illnesses that weren’t a problem previously, come out in full force. Young adults around 18-27 are at the prime stress ages because of all the new changes they are facing for the first time, things like going to college, first real jobs, living alone, adult dating life, etc. I feel like these are the ones who have the most significant percentage of people living with illnesses they aren’t aware of, don’t know where or how to get help, or even have been raised until now not to know anything about mental health. I think the place for my project to live would be first the internet. I think with the rise of social media, blogging, and spreading information quickly and continuously would be the most effective location. It would allow me to have content that was straightforward, concise, and appealed to a younger, more techsavvy audience. Also because of how quickly things are updated and changed, I would be able to monitor how audiences responded to what I put out if it was efficient or not. Execution is still something that is pretty up in the air for me at this point, which I’m not sure is where I should be or not. It’s a mixture of not knowing what medium/ mediums I am interested in pursuing for the semester, and which would make what I want the most successful. Obviously both of those things are something I need to figure out or else my project can’t exist. Seeing as I feel my project would live in the more digital world, I’m at least then focused down into mediums that can be translated to the digital world of the internet. If I were going to go more of the PSA route, that would possibly involve shooting videos of people talking through their experiences or personal stigmas. Then also

promotional materials to gain more attention to the PSA’s I would create. I think right now, I’m most leaning towards creating campaign materials, and then the main piece would be either a video series of PSA’s or an interactive, informational website or app that I’d create. Since I am still unclear on what I will be creating for my project, it is hard to pinpoint other projects what would be similar to mine. Since I feel like mine will most likely end up taking on in one way or another, a PSA style approach, I looked into PSA’s different organizations had done about mental illness. NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, partnered with the Hope & Grace Initiative just recently, last year, and ran a PSA during the national mental health month in May. Called “SigmaFree,” they ran short videos featuring celebrity and mental health advocate Mayim Bialik that talked about how words can affect those with illnesses, and to be careful when using words commonly attached with a certain illness. Urging viewers to be mindful, and not see someone as their disorder, but as the person they are. Another PSA campaign I found was called “The Campaign to Change Direction.” Their mission was changing the perceptions that live around mental health, so those who need help can receive it. Very similar to the ideas that I’m using for my proposal and project as well, but this campaign focused on checking in with yourself and your mental/emotional state often.

M Y M E NTAL H E ALTH BOOK