Approach 2 – CullenS

Reality Now

Social media is commonly used as a way for people to show their life, but commonly it is an unrealistic view of their actual life, Reality Media would be an application designed to disprove these.

Background:

Reality Now is set to display the common mistake that the life someone posts on social media isn’t commonly their real life. Maybe people don’t display their true self throughout their social media presence. More commonly, people have two selves, their real self, and their social media selves. The goal of Reality Now to show the later, and display people on social media in a true way.

Reality Media would require users to use social media realistically. Rather than uploading filtered photos, with fake captions and fake stories surrounding them, Reality Media would take steps to promote honesty within the application. Many people these days use social media as a way to promote themselves in a fake light. One’s true self is commonly different from the self that is actually displayed on social media sites. For instance, many people will post edited pictures, which obviously isn’t the complete truth since they’ve been altered. Reality Media would be based around a few major functions: honest pictures, honest timelines, honest status updates, and lastly, user based ratings on authenticity.

Reality Media would use a few things to determine authenticity and honesty on the application. For a picture to be uploaded, it would have to be taken within the app, and instantly uploaded without allowing any post processing. Along with the picture, it would tag your geographical location, and would honestly put where you were at the time. Of course, you could still add a caption. Along with this simple picture posting application, Reality Media would have a second function. It would allow people to see, “Timelines.” Timelines, if a user chose to opt in for it, would allow the GPS on their phone to be accessed 24/7. Without giving a specific location, it would inform other users what that person had been doing at a specific location. For instance, if you were at your exact home address, the application would say, “You’ve been at your apartment for 4 hours.”

I think this would work to show that people are really just people. And what you see on social media, isn’t always what’s constantly happening in this person’s life. I will state, that there is a big difference between personalization, and fabrication. Personalizing one’s self online makes plenty of sense. Many photographers will edit their pictures so have their own personal touch. Reality Media isn’t addressing this, it’s addressing the lies and falsehoods that are commonly shown throughout social media.

Credits:

I credit this approach to a conversation I had with some teenagers  I coach lacrosse too They came up to me and where talking with about how you can’t really believe someone off of their social media. Recently in their school, a girl who commonly was known as upbeat and happy through social media, was revealed to have actually missed a lot of class due to some problems at home. It was a surprise to them and it had them bring up the concept that one’s true self is usually far removed from what is actually posted on social media.

BUDGETING:

Material:

Computer and smart phone with application making software: $1,500.

Server: $ 1,000

Time:

Around 6 months to develop a fully functioning and decent application.

Space:

General rent of an apartment(space to work in) $600 A month.

Total for six months:

$6,100.