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Idea

An app/experiment in which friends watch out for each other's well-being without knowing who needs uplifting

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Darko Savic

Darko Savic Dec 25, 2021

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A group of friends commits to using an app/experiment where every group member anonymously reports how they are feeling on a scale from 1-10. Everyone sees a cumulative group score but not individual scores. The goal is to uplift the group and keep the collective score high without knowing who is pulling down the average.
Why?
When friends don't know who specifically is feeling down, they work on uplifting the entire group. As a side effect of helping an unknown friend, everyone ends up having a great day. 
A way for strong/proud people to get some support even when they don't want to seem weak for complaining.
More quality time for a group of friends.
How it works
A group of friends installs an app and creates a private group within it. Every group member anonymously reports how they are feeling on a scale from 1 - 10. The app reminds them to keep the score up to date multiple times per day.
People can't see each other's scores, but they can see a cumulative average. The group's goal is to keep the cumulative score as high as possible at all times.
There are 2 rules:
There should be no attempts to identify the person/reason that is bringing down the average. People are not allowed to directly ask questions in order to find out who in the group isn't feeling good. They should not know how to personalize/tailor the intervention to specific cases.
It is against the rules to tell others that you are the one who feels bad or what the reason is.
Periodically, the app provides very specific tips and suggestions on how the entire group can have fun together.

mobile application experiment mood

1

Creative contributions

Report: Group of friends using a simple pool for mood scoring for a month

jnikola

jnikola Feb 23, 2022

The goal: 
to see if this kind of tool would uplift the group in general
to report on the real problems to finally improve the idea if needed
How did it work?
I shared the idea of an experiment with a group of 6 friends of mine, along with the purpose of the experiment (the same if you downloaded an app that does the same). We share 15 years of our lives together, see each other every two, three weeks, and function pretty well. They all agreed, so I created a simple google pool for anonymous reporting of your mood on a scale from 1 to 10. I sent a reminder for a pool at least once a day. I couldn't see who voted. I knew when the vote was recorded and what was the score. After a week I created a graph displaying the votes through time. I did the same after 1 month.   
What were the results?
The first day, the group responded unexpectedly. Six votes ranging from 5 to 10 were recorded. Since everybody saw the votes, they immediatelystarted asking who votes what. Since we know each otherfor a long time, we shared our votes and started discussing why we scored so low/high. It resulted in some deeper conversations and an agreement to meet soon. The next week, scoring and the corresponding conversations continued in the same dynamics. After some time, we realized we cannot solve other people's problems, but continued to meet more often than usual. These meeting were a bit more emotional than the meetings before this. After a month, people returned to their routines, eventually calling each other, rarely checking the pool.
The benefits
the relations got "deeper", more emotional and uplift-oriented (people feeling better invested energy and time to uplift the people feeling down)
the rate of coffees, meetings and hang-outs increased (people put the friendships before some of their daily/weekly routines)
since it was anonymous, people honestly scored their mood 
The downsides
It's hard to stay anonymous when the scores are low 
It's great to be able to report if you feel down, but you still somehow feel that you disrupt the group positive energy
The reporting routine didn't affect people routines and the rate of meetings on a longer run (when everybody were okay, nobody tried to do anything)
The important things to consider
Reminders need to be automatic and adjustable
Scoring function needs to be simple as it can be (screensaver pools, automatic mood detection through browsing history, messages, etc.)
Anonymity when somebody in the group feels down can lead to people engage in finding who is down rather than uplifting the group
To generally uplift the group is not an easy task, since it depends on individual votes
Algorithm that would suggest uplifting stuff to do should not uncover the person who feels down (or it should?)  
Maybe the main problem of such an app
If the group members are close to each other, they are more keen on reporting to each other via messages, calls and individual meetings rather than using the anonymous scoring
if the group members are not close to each other, they could feel like not telling the others how they actually feel
Solution
It could work nicely in business or project groups, rather than friend circles.

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Darko Savic

Darko Savic3 years ago

How were the ratings anonymous if you told each other who voted low?:) Anonymity is crucial for some people to be willing to "show" their vulnerability. If people are asked about the scores and their problems, they might not want to reveal everything (some will rather suffer in silence).

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jnikola

jnikola3 years ago

Darko Savic They were anonymous at first but became known later on. I think it's because we know each other well. 

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General comments

Darryl Koh Yuan Jie

Darryl Koh Yuan Jie3 years ago

I think this functions as a kind of collective well being system for friendships to blossom and ensure that happiness is maintained. However, I am rather perplexed by the rules. I would imagine that if one of my friends are feeling low, it is best to talk things out and share the problems with one another. Moreover, the user who is constantly feeling low might feel he or she is burdening the group and thus feel outcasted. Perhaps rule 1 can exist, but I think one should be given a choice to share their woes and joys too. The app can also feature digital journal entries where friends can share about each other day in detail if they want too! Just my 2 cents, what do you think?

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Darko Savic

Darko Savic3 years ago

Darryl Koh Yuan Jie I initially forgot to add the "Why" section. It's there now. It addresses some of the things you said

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