alanfermat/memes2dreams

A chrome extension that urges people to contribute more meaningful content on social media

Memes2Dreams

• Fewer memes more actions towards your dreams!

Inspiration

Many of us attempt to uninstall social media apps but are never able to quit them completely. We decided to turn the user’s experience on these apps into something more positive and use Twitter as a tool to increase peoples’ awareness about social issues.

In the United States, the average person spends 144 MINUTES A DAY on social media, half of which is spent on browsing irrelevant content, like memes. At the same time, many people are also not aware of the social issues around them. How can we reduce time spent on browsing meaningless content on social media? How can we increase our awareness of the social issues around us by using social media platforms more wisely?

What it does

Given the user’s preferences of memes and social issues they are interested in, Memes2Dreams warns the user if they are spending too much time viewing meaningless content on social media while browsing memes. After their count of memes viewed exceeds a certain value, they are warned again and given a suggested link, image, and headline based on their social issue interests to post on social media. Thus, users are encouraged to spend more time on social media to spread awareness of current events rather than wasting time scrolling through memes.

User flow:

• Open twitter.com and click on the Memes2Dreams icon. Input keywords of memes you enjoy & choose social issues you care about

• View and refresh Twitter as usual. If the number of memes viewed exceeds 5, a pop-up warning will appear.

• If the number exceeds 10, you will see pop-up that urges you to make a post to bring up awareness of the social issue.

• A new webpage that suggests a link, image, and headline of a trending social issue that aligns with their given interests. User chooses whether or not they want to copy, paste, and post trending news issue on their social media

• Click “Get Report” to see the totals of how many memes were viewed

How I built it

• Javascript, HTML, CSS, Material Design, ajax, bootstrap

• Libraries and APIs: NewsAPI, Chrome API, chart.js

Challenges I ran into

Security issues related to passing DOM elements to the chrome extension

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

Building a product that I would love to use Implementing UX design strategy from beginning to end in the user interface design As an ECON major, realizing the engineering design process

What I learned

How to build a chrome extension Deeper knowledge of HTML, CSS, and Javascript How to debug web app How to design the user interface and application logic Teamwork!!

What's next for Memes2Dreams

More Intelligent algorithm for detecting meme content using machine learning Improve performance and consistency with handling asynchronous requests

Demo

(Click me for video demo)