We found out that the biggest barrier to preventing procrastination on the phone is that no one really keeps track of how much time they spend on their social media applications, when in fact these times can add up to significant amounts. When brainstorming for this challenge, I decided to track this time myself and was surprised to find that I was spending more than an hour on Facebook and Instagram every day without my knowing, which was really alarming. So we came up with the simple yet effective idea for VISIcase. VISIcase is a smartphone case with built-in LED lighting designed to prevent procrastination on your phone by providing a visual reminder of your procrastination status every time you use your phone. VISIcase keeps track of the total time spent on the phone’s social media applications and brightly emits 3 different colors based on cumulative time spent on social media throughout the day. The case is initially lit green until your cumulative social media usage reaches a total of 20 minutes, at which point it turns yellow. After a total of 40 minutes, the case turns red. After an hour, the red light blinks continuously and annoyingly, which will be extremely noticeable by others around you – a situation that you might find embarrassing. Another effective feature of the VISIcase is that if you spend more than 5 minutes on a social media application, regardless of whether your light is green, yellow, or red at that moment, the lights will begin blinking for 10 seconds, reminding you that you have overdone your procrastination. VISIcase also allows you to designate which apps to keep track of and set your own time intervals for the yellow and red color change, based on your preferences and personal goals.
