Objective
To assess the effects of social anxiety among 18-29 year olds and potentially identify how to leverage anxiety for a better life.
People with social anxiety tend to fear and avoid social situations. They are very concerned that they will do something embarrassing, or that others will judge them. It is normal to feel anxious in social situations from time to time.
Social anxiety becomes a problem when it becomes quite distressing and starts getting in the way of your ability to function and enjoy life.
Therefore, the goal is to learn to manage anxiety, not eliminate it.
Research Process
My objective was to assess the effects of social anxiety among 18-29 year olds and potentially identify how to leverage anxiety for a better life. I had a certain hypothesis and assumptions about our target audience and people who suffer from social anxiety. I also assumed that people get social anxiety during teens which was not exactly true as we found out through our research. I adopted different methods to conduct research varying from desk research, interviews to surveys. Then I synthesised this research which brought me back to my objective.
Research Journey
I tried to learn and understand the root cause for everything a person thinks, feels and undergoes when they experience social anxiety through the following research methods.
Desk Research
Through desk research I found out that there are 48 million people suffering from Anxiety and from that, 15 million suffer from Social Anxiety and 4 million are in the age group of 18-29 which is my target group.
Online Survey
I used Qualtrics to conduct a survey. This survey was carefully circulated on various social media platforms like Facebook, Reditt, Twitter among social anxiety group. This was also circulated at The New School University Health Centre again among groups with people dealing with social anxiety.
Social Anxiety in different situations
Public speaking, meeting someone new, going to a party
Making small talk, talking to authority figures
Stating your opinion, making phone calls, being out in the public.
For a more qualitative analysis I did one on on interviews with people from my target audience as well as industry experts.
Synthesis
Next I tried to synthesise all this information we got from the research i.e. desk research, online survey and interviews by sorting it under various categories such as how it all started, type of treatment, support system, situation that lead to social anxiety etc. I further tried to put these together into broad category of experience, negative self talk etc.
Affinity Mapping
Mapping Social Anxiety
Based on research and synthesis I tried to map the journey of a person experiencing social anxiety. What a person feels or experiences before a social situation, during a social situation and after a social situation.
Conclusion
Based on all the research I found out three opportunity areas where interventions could produce the maximum impact. These opportunity areas could be further developed into solutions individually or combined to generate a large scale single solution.
Opportunity Areas
Creating Awareness
Self Help techniques
Providing a Support System
