Research 9/30-10/5 cont. Survey Among Peers

I decided I wanted to get feedback from people around me to get other perspectives I might of missed. Because of COVID-19, I am unable to meet in person with my friends, and I didn't have enough time to call everyone, so I created a survey to reach out to my friends to hear more about what they wanted to say.

This was particularly helpful because I got to gained a better direction of where I can continue my research. A few people pointed out that a large part of their identity has to do with their race and surroundings. Though I've read articles that discussed this topic, I realized I can be doing a lot more research in that area. I also noticed a lot of people point out that they are more than just their appearance. I found that important to note because though I am making discussing physical appearance, it is only a portion of our identity. I am choosing to focus on it because I do believe it plays a significant role in our daily lifestyle, but we do have many layers to us. My overall goal is to focus on this aspect to gain a greater sense of self-awareness.

Here are the results:

I first asked general questions for demographic purposes,. This was mostly female and a few males. I also asked age range, and since I was reaching out to people I know, the majority were in the same range of 18-25 years old.

I then asked them to summarize themselves in a few words. This was to get some ideas going about the topic of identity. I wanted to know what people think of when they begin to describe themselves. I got quite a few different answers for this one. I had several people describe themselves by character traits, mostly positive ones, some aesthetic based, one including race and ethnicity in the answer, and one taking a more literal approach saying they were made of star stuff.

I then moved the discussion over the discussion of makeup and physical appearance. I asked if they felt their physical appearance reflects their personal idea of themselves. Looking back, I would reword this question because it's fairly vague and cannot easily be concluded in a yes or no answer. However, the results showed that most people do feel that statement is true.

I also asked how often they wear makeup and that got me a variety of answers. A small majority said they wear it on special occasions or going out. Equal parts said they would either rarely wear it, or wear it everyday. Again, this is a question that if I were to ask again, I would tweak the wording to differentiate special occasions and rarely. Finally, I asked why they wear it and not surprisingly, majority of people I asked wear it for a confidence boost and/or to conceal features. I think it's also something to note that a handful of people also wear makeup for fun which is important because sometimes there is no real point to putting it on other than enjoyment.

I then moved on to ask about reflection. One question I asked was how many times a day they look in the mirror. From 1 being never and 5 being constantly, the results were in the middle as expected. When I asked to describe their relationship with their reflection, I got a bit of mixed responses. Many people explained they have a love hate relationship with it. Sometimes they are confident, accepting, or at peace with their reflection. Sometimes it's a bumpy rode and they get caught up insecurities. One person noted they can easily point out both liked and disliked features, but try not to nit-pick. And of course, one person pointed out how fascinated they were by light reflection.

Moving forward, I brought up the topic of social media and beauty filters. I fount it surprising that half of the people I surveyed felt they did not at all feel like they were portraying a different version of themselves on social media than in real life. This is probably because I fall into the range of feeling like my online presence does not reflect reality. If I were to go back and re-ask this question, I would add a choice of not having a social media account or not being active on it.

I also asked if people use beauty filters, which was pretty much split between yes and no. I should next time specify that 'yes' means constantly to differentiate it from sometimes, but I can tell a handful of people use them at some point. I am a bit curious to know more about this topic. If I were to do another round, I might ask if people lean towards the makeup looking filters, the artistic or fun ones, if they use them ironically or because of insecurities.

My last question I asked was what would they want others to know about them when they first meet/see them. This was an interesting question because I got results that aided me in my research direction. A few people stated they want others to know that there are more layers to them than just their appearance. This is important because our identity encompasses a range of factors that define it. I think it should be said that while this is true, physical appearance is a large chunk of our identity. While it does not define all of it, it gives us that much more of a sense of self awareness.

Another important statement that was brought up in this section was that race and environment play a large role in our perception of ourselves. Though I have read articles and watched documentaries that discussed the topic of race, I need to be doing more and also make it a part of my surveys and discussions.

I found overall reaching out to others for feedback was very helpful in bringing me out of the realms of my brain and the design classroom. As I move forward with my project, I would like to implement another survey, this time with more refined questions and reaching a broader audience for more accurate research.