4A

2) The Problem/Opportunity

Phone Addiction kills productivity and concentration

2) Description of belief 

• The unmet need is to be independent of one’s cell phone and that it does not interfere with one’s productivity and concentration.
• Who is in need: Young children, in high school or college students, employees, a great amount of all cell phone users.
• It is a rather new need because the cell phone has not played such an important role so far, but now most people cannot live with it anymore.
• What people are doing against this problem at this point: Certain apps allow you to only use utilize chosen apps for certain hours during the day (these hours can be customized).

• How sure I am that this opportunity exists: 100%

3) Prototypical customer:

Students that get distracted by their cell phone, by every single notification. Students that have problems concentrating and have problems studying. Students that are glued to their cell phones are wasting valuable time they could be using productively. Students that want to change their habits and are willing to seek support.

4) Interview 1

I talked to my roommate who is a student at UF. The nature of the need is that one uses up way too much time on the phone, gets addicted to instant gratification one gets from apps like FB, Instagram, Pinterest, Tinder, even email. Our brain pours out loads of dopamine from all these virtual temporary happy makers, for example, likes, comments, new messages, etc. The prototypical customer claimed to feel the need when studying, that he gets distracted by every ring or beep the phone makes. Sometimes he imagines having heard something and reaches for his phone. Every time he grabs it, his subconscious takes over he says, and he ends up 20 min in scrolling through something he did not want to do logically and completely forgot about studying. He claims it takes him about 5 minutes again to regain focus on what he was doing 30 minutes ago before the non-important, unintentional phone break. He had had this need for some time. He claimed he had issues like this for about 3 years now and it is getting worse and worse. He has been aware of this for some time, but he never manages to do anything about it. He mentioned that sometimes he leaves his phone outside of his room to study in his room and tries to concentrate, but not even that helps! After not even an hour some thought pops up in his mind and he is just drawn to go into the other room to grab his cell phone to check something his mind makes him believe to be extremely important. He claims there must be some way or trick or some habit that can be acquired to manage this addiction.

3.2 Prototypical customer:

Students that get distracted by their cell phone, by every single notification. Students that have problems concentrating and have problems studying. Students that are glued to their cell phones and are wasting valuable time they could be used productively. Students that want to change their habits and are willing to seek support. The student must be aware of his addiction though.

Interview 2

I talked to my brother who is a college student as well. My brother claimed that he has noticed an extreme need to check his phone without wanting too logically. Logically he claims to want to sit down to study. But his mind gives him reasons why he should check the phone, scroll through Instagram, etc. Usually, it also takes him a while to recognize what is going on. He claims it takes him a while until his brain forgets about the phone. When he gets into a flow state when studying he forgets about everything around. At some point, he claims his concentration weakens, that usually when his mind gives him the next signal of grabbing his phone. Right now he does not have a solution to this problem, because he does not take this issue to serious, but he does wishes for something that would make him less distracted and being able to get in a flow state quicker.

3.3 Prototypical customer:

College students and high school pupils that get distracted by their cell phone, by every single notification. These have problems concentrating and have difficulties studying properly. Those who are glued to their cell phones and are wasting valuable time they could be used in a productive way (for them and society at a whole). Students that want to change their habits and are willing to seek support. The student must be aware of his addiction though.



4.3 Interview 3

I talked to a random high school student. After doing some small talk I asked her all about this topic. She told me that she has a feeling of needing to check Instagram and snap chat because she has the feeling she is missing out if she doesn’t check regularly. When she posts a picture, she feels happy about every like she gets on it- the more- the better. I asked her to show me her screen time (a tracker of how many hours she spends with her phone open). The result was shocking, she had used her phone for 7 hours already and the day was not even over. That is too much time on the phone in my opinion.

5) Reflection:

I learned that many people have this bug, but many claim it to not be as bad or that it does not interfere with their productivity and focus. But there are still enough people that would appreciate a product or service to support them. Also, social media is a way of making people feel happy (temporarily). Likes, comments, and follows give us some type of gratification. The problem is bigger than I thought. Especially younger age groups are more attached to their phones it seems.

7) Summary:

I am one of the people that are affected by this problem. I know very well how hard it is to resist the phone, so my initial belief is not too far away from reality. Therefore, most of my original opportunity still exists. I do believe that my new opportunity is more accurate due to the interviews I gathered information to why the problem exists and what the very nature of it is. I believe that interviewing your costumers and your target audience is the key to finding out if your idea is valuable or irrelevant to society.