Preliminary Research and Summation

Problem definition: what leads to your research question

People have habits they want to change, but there is a direct and simple way for them to use personal motivation in an app to help them make that change.

Update: 11/8/18 Problem Evolution: Young women in their 20's are constantly battling a bombardment of external influences that degrade their self image, especially their body image, and while people notice these external influences as largely negative, there aren't many existing solutions for these young women to help or protect themselves from these influences.

Assumption:
Everyone has behaviors that they would like to change: ex: stop drinking, less shopping, be more active, etc.

Identifying problems:
1. I spend too much money on clothes or eating at restaurants
2. I don't leave my house often enough
3. I drink too much

Initial question:
How or can design be used to help personally modify your behaviors?

Primary Research:
Are there people who want to change their behavior?
Answer: by just googling "how to break bad habits" google came up with 96,500,000 results in .75 seconds, which at the very least means that there has been some energy placed into this topic by a substantial amount of people

A TED talk video posted to youtube in 2016 titled "A Simple Way to Break a Bad Habit" by Judson Brewer, has received 5,928,337 views, 92 thousand likes, and 2400 comments. This proves that people are looking to change their behaviors (habits) but they are looking for answers from other people.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-moW9jvvMr4&t=2s&frags=pl%2Cwn

A scholarly journal from MIT mentions the TTM, the Transtheoretical Model, which breaks down how individuals who are trying to make changes in their behavior, work through the 6 stages change as proposed by the Model : "precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, maintenance, and termination"
all of these stages become customized by the individual, they set their own goals and so on.
http://web.mit.edu/collaborationtbox/module13/2016/Module13-4.pdf

This journal led me to the question, if someone wants to change their behavior, can they be more effective if they motivate themselves or if they rely on others for motivation?
- reference the self talk book
External motivation is also called Extrinsic Motivation, internal is called Intrinsic Motivation

Extrinsic motivation can include social environments, incentives

Based off of another journal that compares Intrinsic and Extrinsic motivation, there are instances when extrinsic motivation can damage or hinder one's intrinsic motivation, if that's the case, when trying to alter your own behavior, would it be worse to rely on someone else for motivation?
https://www.princeton.edu/~rbenabou/papers/RES2003.pdf

How do people use design already to modify behavior?
- apple watch, fitbit, etc: remind me to walk around
- meditation apps
- alarms, notifications



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