AUGUST 24TH, 2025
<aside> 🔖 Week 1 of Master’s Project
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Petrichor in the air on a warm sunny day, I walked into my local Chik-Fil-A salivating for a chicken sandwich. I had been wanting one forever as it had been one of my favorite things growing up. I walked towards the center of the restaurant and got in line. Behold in front of me a long line of nine stood there. A women, my age, stood there in line looking down at her phone. I watched her scroll through instagram, like a post, close the app and head over to BeReal to take a photo of the menu and herself standing in line, post it, and then finally hop over to facebook to see her scroll through a tech-focused page. I was amazed.
3 different apps in under 30 seconds. It was awesome to say the least. The navigation of comprehending all the actions in such a short amount of time was short of dystopian. The consumption patterns of this lady was something I never thought was possible. How was she ingesting all of that so quickly, while in public?
When I got up to the counter I was barely able to navigate the Chik-Fil-A App to receive my rewards and points. I was caught off guard by someone’s ability to grasp an app’s UI so intimately. Why was she scrolling through so many apps? For what information was she missing?
Then it dawned on me while I was dunking my sandwich into the yellow-colored ichor - she was searching for information, nothing specific, but for the algorithm gods to bless her. So that brings me here…
Earlier this week I had the opportunity to start my Master’s Project for the Masters of Innovation Design Program at WSU. It’s been an amazing a wild ride for me not only personally, but professionally. It’s allowed me to succeed in more ways than one, and think of all the things that are possible for one person leveraging AI and market demands.
Over the last few months, I’ve been mulling over a project to begin and start with for this class. I’ve been pooling together people I want eyes looking it over from a product perspective, but now that the semester has started…
Like I said before, I’ve always been a book guy. If anyone had been around to see my undergrad days- they were spent filling in pages of the void with quasi-prolific takes on bad books and other forms of media. I do not reminisce on those days as I was always worried about the next writing gig, book to read, or how I was going to eat.
Which brings me here today. In 2021, I completely disemboweled my social media accounts. Curing myself from the affliction of consumption. However many people I knew were getting their news from somewhere. I ended up using RSS Hub as my alternative for news.
RssHub’s Landing Page
tiktok photo
It worked for a while, but it still felt like the news I was receiving was different than others. It wasn’t the core part of why people used social media: information, but it was the art of so many other things: friends, media influencers, shit posts, discussion threads, FOMO etc.,
I realized my assumption was wrong on social media usage. If I was right, I would see people using their local news app or Good Morning America as their weapon of choice when bored. They were using LinkedIn while on their lunch break since it made them feel “productive” or TikTok during their breaks to break out of the work-minded loop.
No matter what happened- people were using social media either unconsciously or consciously during specific moods. A study from OnCampusNation, a research Org, showed that 41% were using TikTok just to cure FOMO and boredom.
So I asked the question why weren’t people reading books. People are always citing that they wish they read more books. Looking at this NPR study from only months ago, the researchers reached a conclusion that nearly more than 80% of Americans view reading as beneficial and nearly 99% of people wish their kids would “adopt a love of reading;” however when surveyed about their reading patterns only 50% of the respondents said they had read in the last month while 80% of them had more than likely scrolled on social media.
hand grabbing book
Okay well if people thought about reading so much, shouldn’t they be reading while in their periods of down time? That’s a no. Because never have I once saw someone reading from a kindle in the line nor have I seen them open the app while driving. Sometimes I’ll see people scrolling while driving! Insanity. Certainly not reading a book while driving though.
Personal Anecdote: This past week when I was with a group of friends, I surveyed them if they wish they could get smarter at something. Yes, ofcourse everyone is self-conscious about their conscious. They all answered without lag: undeniably yes. Yet when I asked them where they got their current materials to stay up-to-date? It was X (twitter), instagram and hype youtube videos. I was not surprised.
However when I asked them if they kind find a way if they could control their algorithms to tailor it towards content they were actually interested in? They all unanimously agreed that during the day- they would have productive boundaries “on” and at night- let leisure posts go through the roof.
This is to say that they’re interested in the ability to channel their algo’s towards posts of a specific topic or niche in the day. “Interesting,” I said. So what if during the onboarding you could give the app advice on what you wanted to see and learn, and it generated/curated content for you. They all agreed this was a good idea. So to the drawing board I went.
I meet with both of my professors from the MID: Doug and Jared
Beginning with some ideas of what it might look like, I drew up an outline with AI of what the project might look like over the next 16 weeks. And this misattributed quote to Napoleon is right: “No Plan Survives Contact With the Enemy.” -Helmuth von Moltke the Elder.
In my meeting with both of them, they offered different ways of starting on the Big Hairy Problem (BHP) and I had agreed with both: Build a product that people want, and to ask a lot of user questions. I planned on getting out in the field for people’s social media habits… But there was plenty of research out there already. Why dig a well when there are four next door?
picture of masters proposal
So I began asking AI what kind of questions I can get the most information out of random people. Trying to pull on emotional, behavioral and perhaps psychological questions. This is when Jared comes into it.
I enter his room and tell him my plans. He tells me that sounds great. An algorithm could be extremely beneficial. “Now go build it and use it,” he says.
