What the Screen Doesn’t Show: Designing for Digital Burnout Awareness Assessment

Assessment

Background & Context

In today’s hyperconnected world, the boundary between work, study, and rest has dissolved especially for Gen Z students whose education, relationships, and self-worth are constantly mediated through screens.
 Digital devices were once tools for productivity, but they have quietly become sources of exhaustion, comparison, and anxiety.
 Scrolling has replaced silence; notifications have replaced presence. Recent studies on student wellbeing highlight a growing crisis of digital burnout the mental and physical fatigue that results from constant connectivity and information overload.

For many young people, burnout is not recognised as a warning sign until it becomes overwhelming.
 It hides behind phrases like “I’m fine,” “just one more task,” or “I’ll rest later.”
 This culture of performance and availability has normalised exhaustion as a badge of effort. As a design student living within this same cycle, I began observing how easily we dismiss tiredness as “normal” and how design itself often contributes to overstimulation.

Research Methods

Autoethnographic Reflection Method:
 Personal journaling and time tracking of my daily digital habits, energy levels, and emotional states over two weeks.
 Application:
 These reflections revealed that my own burnout patterns mirrored those of my peers constant multitasking, late-night scrolling, and pressure to stay productive.
 I translated these lived insights into the tone of my campaign: empathetic rather than instructive.
 This directly influenced the Mirror of Minds concept, where participants recognise their own exhaustion through shared handwriting.

Peer Observation and Informal Interviews Method:
 Casual observation of classmates in studio spaces and conversations about how they manage online workload, deadlines, and rest.
 Application:
 Quotes such as “I can’t switch off” and “I feel guilty doing nothing” informed the campaign’s emotional messaging.
 I incorporated these findings into the language design of the installation phrases like “Write what the screen doesn’t show” and prompts like “I feel, but I want to were inspired by how students describe their burnout experiences.

Findings & Insights

Through autoethnographic reflection, peer observation, and participatory prototyping, I uncovered how digital burnout has become invisible, normalised, and deeply personal among Gen Z students.
The findings revealed emotional, behavioural, and cultural patterns that directly informed the tone, form, and purpose of my activation campaign

Burnout doesn’t begin with failure it begins with disconnection from the self. By turning recognition into a shared, participatory act, “What the screen doesn’t show” transforms awareness into empathy, and empathy into mindful action. 

Brief Summary of Assessment Requirements

This assessment focuses on critically exploring digital burnout among Gen Z students within the context of a hyperconnected digital culture. The task requires students to demonstrate an understanding of how constant screen engagement affects mental, emotional, and physical wellbeing, particularly in educational environments.

Key assessment requirements include:

• Establishing a clear background and context that situates digital burnout as a contemporary and relevant issue.
• Applying qualitative research methods, specifically reflective and observational approaches, to investigate lived experiences of burnout.
• Translating research findings into meaningful design insights that inform a concept-driven response.
• Demonstrating critical reflection, empathy, and awareness of how design can either contribute to or challenge overstimulation and burnout.
• Presenting findings in a coherent narrative that connects research, insight, and final conceptual outcome.

Academic Mentor’s Step-by-Step Approach

The academic mentor guided the student through the assessment using a structured and reflective process, ensuring each section aligned with the learning objectives and assessment criteria.

Step 1: Understanding the Context and Purpose

The mentor began by helping the student unpack the broader issue of digital burnout, particularly its relevance to Gen Z students. Emphasis was placed on grounding the work in real-world context, encouraging the student to reflect on personal experiences as a design student living within the same digital pressures being studied.

Step 2: Selecting and Applying Research Methods

The mentor guided the student in choosing appropriate qualitative research methods that aligned with the assessment’s reflective and exploratory nature.

• Autoethnographic Reflection was introduced as a valid academic method, allowing the student to systematically document personal digital habits, emotional states, and energy levels.
• Peer Observation and Informal Interviews were used to expand the perspective beyond the self, ensuring the research captured shared and collective experiences within the student community.

The mentor explained how these methods strengthen authenticity while remaining academically rigorous.

Step 3: Translating Research into Design Insights

The mentor supported the student in analysing the research findings and identifying recurring emotional and behavioural patterns, such as guilt around rest, constant multitasking, and difficulty disconnecting.
Guidance was provided on how to translate these insights into empathetic design language, ensuring the outcome felt reflective rather than instructional or judgmental.

Step 4: Concept Development and Narrative Alignment

The mentor helped the student refine the core concept, “What the screen doesn’t show,” ensuring it directly responded to the research findings. The participatory nature of the concept was shaped to encourage recognition, shared vulnerability, and self-awareness.
The mentor emphasized maintaining a strong link between research evidence, emotional insight, and design intention.

Step 5: Review, Refinement, and Academic Framing

Finally, the mentor reviewed the assessment to ensure clarity, cohesion, and alignment with academic expectations. Feedback focused on strengthening reflective depth, articulating insights clearly, and ensuring the final outcome demonstrated critical thinking and intentional design reasoning.

Outcome Achieved and Learning Objectives Covered

Outcome Achieved

• A well-researched and reflective assessment that clearly articulates digital burnout as a hidden yet normalized issue among Gen Z students.
• A concept-driven response grounded in lived experience, peer insights, and empathetic design thinking.
• A coherent narrative linking context, research, findings, and final conceptual outcome.

Learning Objectives Covered

• Critical understanding of contemporary wellbeing issues in digital culture
• Application of qualitative research methods in design inquiry
• Reflective and ethical research practice
• Translation of research insights into concept-driven design outcomes
• Development of empathy-led, socially conscious design thinking

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