OUTCOME
Odira Group: Han Na Ji, Evelyn Yu, Harriet Lawless
We sought to build up this community and find ways to create empathy within the environment. We are focusing on university students who face social anxiety when returning to university. We aim to turn social anxiety into something we can face through empathy. The Gashapon works as a catalyst, to help build the confidence of students facing social anxiety. Moreover, to encourage them to build new relationships through empathy. The Gashapon brings students together without them necessarily needing to interact, but it helps them to take that ‘first social step’ that may seem daunting. By sharing each other’s intrusive/negative thoughts and worries, hopefully, students facing social anxiety can empathize with each other and learn that their feelings are mutual (that they aren’t alone feeling like this).
PROCESS: Data Collection
For our primary research, we created a Google forms survey that went into depth on the topic of social anxiety experienced by students. We asked questions such as, what would you do or where would you go when experiencing feelings of anxiety? Giving students the option between a few locations, with “ the bathroom” and “go home” coming out on top.
Going forward with the bathroom, we began observational research using the CSM Bathrooms as the location to host a Q and A. Asking students questions about their bathroom experiences we received varied answers. Discovering overall that students experiencing social anxiety use the bathroom as a place they can retreat to as a means to escape an overwhelming situation. Discovering a strong correlation between social anxiety suffers and the bathroom. After critique, we realized that the word choice of our questions could have been communicated more clearly. Instead of using language directed specifically towards our topic of social anxiety.
PROCESS: Prototype
From the Q and A, the responses to people’s experiences in the bathroom also had some deep stories, yet most of them were pretty small things such as COMPLIMENTING, BEING HEARD, or BEING NOTICED and the similarities between these was that all the experiences happened spontaneously, moments that were never planned nor expected- and EMPATHY worked only because it came across as a SURPRISE!
We brought this spontaneity into creating a Toilet Gashapon (vending) machine by initiating indirect interaction between students with social anxiety. Where once flushed, participants receive a small surprise (a sticker) in exchange for their worries written down on a piece of toilet paper. In order to encourage students with social anxiety to build empathy, we gave them the option to reply to the worries that had been “flushed away” by giving advice to their peers anonymously.
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