#wicked problem

[hbussler-blog]

Stigma Around Mental Health 

I suffer from anxiety and depression and I have heard all of the examples above. Would someone treat a physical illness like that? Well no, it would be ridiculous. So why do we treat mental health like this?

I truly believe that people have a hard time understanding mental illness because it is not visible to the naked eye. Health professionals go off of who someone “feels” and when someone doesn't believe how you are feeling, it can make you feel like you are the issue when you really just want help. I think that this wicked problem deserves more than an article in Forbes, although it is a good one. It deserves time, the design thinking process, and one day...a solution.

[noosphe-re]

A wicked problem is a problem that is difficult or impossible to solve because of incomplete, contradictory, and changing requirements that are often difficult to recognize. The use of the term "wicked" here has come to denote resistance to resolution, rather than evil. Another definition is "a problem whose social complexity means that it has no determinable stopping point". Moreover, because of complex interdependencies, the effort to solve one aspect of a wicked problem may reveal or create other problems.

Wikipedia

[psycheapuleius]

Occasional Thoughts on Mind & Matter Nth of a Series of Alpha As Isaiah Berlin pointed out: “Enlightenment thinkers accepted three basic assumptions: all genuine questions can, in principle, be answered; these answers can be known by methods that can be learnt and taught to others; and all the answers must be compatible with one another.” These assumptions remain true for many problems great and small maybe even most problems. However, there are a set of problems known as “wicked” problems that are not “solvable” in ways that “tame” problems can be solved. What are wicked problems and why can’t they be solved easily or quickly? Tame problems are straightforward and understandable and can be approached by agreed upon rules using standard techniques. Reasonable people may favor one approach over another but through compromise tame problems can be solved in ways that typically satisfy most stakeholders. Wicked problems do not lend themselves to easily understood rule-based solutions. In fact, the more you investigate wicked problems the more you feel like you are “pealing the onion” and uncovering new aspects of the original problem. Work groups tackling wicked problems may find themselves reframing the problem or seeking new collaborators after attempting an interim solution. Most multidimensional problems involving relations among and between groups turn out to be wicked in part or whole. The identification of “wickedness” is critical because thinking a wicked problem is tame constitutes a crucial error in framing and results in frequent failed attempts at a solution. Participants in solving such mismatches often believe that their frustrated attempts are due to bad faith or incompetence of others when it is the wicked nature of the problem.

[thiscrapbook]

It’s Not (Just) About Climate

The world’s ‘wicked problems’ are connected. We can’t fix one without having a solution for them all. But here’s how we start.

In order to understand how to fix such a mess of existential threats, it’s first important to notice what they all have in common from a sociological perspective. They’re all what you might call global downsizers. These problems are already directly impacting the ease with which our species can extract wealth from its environment. It’s getting harder and therefore more expensive to catch fish, grow crops, raise animals, beat diseases, or handle weather.

Because these forces restrict our growth, it means technology can no longer keep up with the ever-increasing demand for freedom and opportunity. The net result is a growing sense that the walls are closing in. It’s a kind of global cabin fever. And that changes how people think.

[ppetruska]

Houston, we have a problem

Houston, we have a problem.

Debió ser noche sin luna de un verano por Ituzaingó, con mucha humedad, y ya no sé cómo pero nuestro alrededor se llenó de luciérnagas, en mi recuerdo son muchísimas más está claro, miles de motitas de luz que giran en mi memoria regresándome la felicidad de ese momento, de la Argentina que me tocó vivir.

Sucede que hay días que desciendo al inframundo, en donde todo lo que se iba se regresa y…

View On WordPress

[phuongfinds]

Images from Google’s Digital Wellbeing page.

Visual Diary 13: A “Wellbeing” Find

For this week’s visual diary topic, I circled back to the wicked problem that I have been focusing on this semester for my Design Leadership class: social engagement and disengagement for mobile devices. There are mobile apps and minimalist phones with the design strategy to strip away distraction but that meant downloading another app or taking an additional step to get people to want to get another phone. A mobile device is merely a tool to assist people in their daily lives rather than stealing attention away from the life they live. My stake in the ground is to leverage the device to combat this wicked issue. Thus, it led me to look further into what mobile systems are doing to design against distractions for the wellbeing of their users.

Google takes on the responsibility to their users in this wicked problem with their Digital Wellbeing program. They focus on “creating tools and features to help people better understand their tech usage, focus on what matters most, disconnect when needed, and create healthy habits for the whole family (Google Wellbeing). A few features designed with intentionality worth mentioning are the App Timers to set limits on app usage, Do Not Disturb to hide all notifications, Family Link to manage apps your kids use, Google Wifi’s schedule internet breaks, and the Android Auto as mentioned in a previous visual diary post. In addition, users could use the gesture of flipping the phone face down to turn on Do Not Disturb, unfortunately this is only available with the Pixel 3 (Google Support). 

Mobile distraction is a habit to overcome. Users get distracted only to the extent they allow themselves to be and technology should exist to help users “develop their own sense of digital wellbeing.”

[hbussler-blog]

Wicked Problem: Obesity

As someone who was severely obese two years ago, I feel like I am obligated to talk about this wicked problem. My father was heavy and my mom was always thin. My brother got my moms genes and I got my fathers. I dieted since the sixth grade, suffered intense bullying, and felt that I would always be big and there was nothing I could do about it. I do not put that on either my parents as they both tried to teach me how to eat healthily and practice healthy habits but I had. Anyways, I had gastric bypass surgery at age 21. Gastric bypass is also the only known “cure” for diabetes due to the limit on real sugar that I can now have. If I consume it, I get sick and that is NOT fun. My father, husband, his mom, and brother also had the surgery. We are all healthier and leading a better life. If this is the solution to obestiy, the problem is how do we a. make it more affordable b. make it more socially accepted. Countless celebrities have had it but do not speak about the surgery but rather portray the unrealistic idea that they lost the weight “naturally”. Time to talk about it!

[hbussler-blog]

Little Steps = Big Changes

After just doing an easy Google search, I came across an organization called the National Alliance on Mental Illness. On their webpage, there is an article called “9 Ways To Fight Mental Health Stigma” by Laura Greenstein. Their recommendation to help fight stigma is: talk openly about mental health, educate yourself and others, be conscious of language, encourage equality between physical and mental illness, show compassion for those with mental illness, choose empowerment over shame, be honest about treatment, let the media know when they’re being stigmatizing, and don’t harbor self-stigma. 

These solutions make me question two things: 1. can these simple solutions be the answer to solving stigmatism? and 2. are we where stigmatizing against mental health starts? Are we our own worst enemy?