M.A. Communication Design students from Media University Berlin are currently working on a project that reflects the social network in a more humorous way. Their Instagram posts invite users to digitally "detox”.
The Instagram account https://www.instagram.com/theeasywaytostop/ has been posting a number of images using the hashtag #instagramtherapy. All of them are works from the seminar “User Centered Design” taught by Prof. Dr. Jan-Henning Raff, which is part of the curriculum of M.A. Communication Design. The posts aim at leading users away from the ubiquitous medium of Instagram, or, at least, make them reflect their own social media habits.
For the majority of students, using Instagram is part of their daily routine. While connecting people worldwide by visual means and being a source of inspiration and entertainment, there are some aspects of the network worth critisizing. The students‘ project focuses on the addictive quality of Instagram. The medium provides us with a never ending stream of pictures, which we spend only seconds on viewing.
These are the very challenges of the medium itself, which the students make use of in their designs: Their eye-catching and witty posts succeed in immediately capturing the viewer’s attention and provoke a critical (self-) reflexion.
More #instagramtherapy will be on display at the semester exhibition, July 20!
