Project: ReelTalk

2022

Co-created and proposed a social media movement: ReelTalk.

Learning through play is an effective medium through which young people develop key life skills, as well as expand their knowledge and expertise. Play during leisure time carries on into pre-adolescence, but rather than playing with toys, young adolescents play with technology. Tweens (10-14 year olds) today are surrounded by pop culture and mass media through networks of technology, and research shows that tweens hunger for media portrayals that are authentic representations of themselves.

The ReelTalk social media movement builds media literacy in service of belonging, mental health and well-being of tweens, leveraging pop culture and mass media as channels for informal learning. The project design meets students where they are at — social media. ReelTalk engages students in belonging and mental health topics through what they are talking about — pop culture and mass media.

Scope:

Online Platforms, Digital Media Literacy, Tweens, Interactive Design

Mission:

ReelTalk aims to build authentic and informed connections to mass media and mental health management for tweens to engage as critical thought leaders for healthy media consumption.

Skills:

Design

• sketched learner/target audience profiles

• conducted formative evaluations on 8 tweens and 5 parents

• conducted A/B testing of content

• produced content using an agile and iterative prototype method

• produced logic model and related graphics

Leadership & Management

• led group collaborations and facilitation of group meetings

• established and managed business model, business strategy, and prototype timelines and deliverable benchmarks

• produced impact evaluation plan

Intended Outcome:

• enhance digital and pop-culture media literacy within tween audiences using social media

• establish belonging and mental health knowledge and strategies amongst tweens

• support greater mental health awareness among tweens

Prototype Samples: