Social media addiction is one of the most pervasive and least acknowledged problems of our time. People spend hours scrolling without realising it. Chasing validation, comparison, and distraction in a cycle deliberately designed to be unbreakable. The platforms that profit from attention have little incentive to interrupt it. The question was whether design could do what the platforms wouldn't - to step in, slow things down, and make the user aware of where their time was actually going.

A series of vector illustrations designed to live inside the very platforms they critique — appearing as pop-up notifications when a user has been active for more than 20 minutes. Each illustration captures a specific behaviour of social media addiction: doom scrolling into an endless void, apps running on a loop inside someone's head, a person trapped inside their own phone, consuming content like chocolate, platforms pulling people like puppets, and swallowing social media like a daily pill. Rendered with visual wit rather than judgment, each image was designed to stop a thumb mid-scroll — recognisable enough to land, uncomfortable enough to linger.

The sharpest thing about this project is the contradiction at its centre, using social media to fight social media addiction. That irony was intentional. Awareness campaigns that live outside the platforms rarely reach the people most affected by them. This one goes where the problem is.

The pop-up format was chosen because timing matters. A statistic about screen time is easy to dismiss at a desk. The same message appearing at twenty minute of a scroll session hits differently. The illustrations were designed to feel familiar rather than preachy , showing behaviours people would recognise in themselves without feeling attacked or shamed.

Because the goal was never to lecture. It was to create a moment of pause — a small crack of self-awareness in the middle of a habit that thrives on mindlessness. One illustration, one interruption, one moment where the user sees themselves clearly and gets to choose what happens next.

year

2022

timeframe

6 Months

tools

Illustrator, Photoshop

category

Personal Project

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Mockup of Social Media Addiction Pop-ups

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Mockup of Social Media Addiction Pop-ups

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Mockup of Social Media Addiction Pop-ups

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Mockup of Social Media Addiction Pop-ups