The Statistics

Upon researching our topic, we have learnt a lot about the pressures that teenage girls face. Here are the main facts and statistics:

“Most damningly girls feel that adults are out of touch with new threats to their wellbeing - leaving them struggling to find the adequate support and information they need to remain resilient in the face of increasing pressures. 82 per cent of girls aged 11 to 21 say adults don't recognise the pressure they are under. But despite the challenges taking a negative toll on their lives - girls remain hopeful and determined to change the world for young women.”

(http://new.girlguiding.org.uk/latest-updates/making-a-difference/girls-attitudes-survey-2015)

General Facts:

Girls' mental well-being worries start from as young as seven – escalating as they get older with two in five girls aged 11 to 21 needing to seek help with mental health concerns.

62 per cent of girls aged 11 to 21 know a girl their age who has experienced a mental health problem, while almost half of girls aged 17 to 21 (46 per cent) have personally needed help with their mental health.

82% of girls and young women aged 11-21 feel that adults don’t recognise the pressures that young people are under. (http://www.girlguiding.org.uk/pdf/GAS_15_website.pdf)

81% of girls and young women aged 11 to 21 reportthat in the past week they have experienced or observed some form of everyday sexism. (http://www.girlguiding.org.uk/pdf/GAS_15_website.pdf)

The top wish among all teen girls is for their parents to communicate better with them. This includes frequent and more open conversations.

Body Image

What is body image?

This can include a person’s thoughts and feelings about their weight, shape, skin colour, size, height and their appearance more broadly. The development of body image is complex and research demonstrates that it can be shaped by an individual’s mind-set and biology, as well as the influence of peer groups, family, media, and the society and culture in which we live. Two people could look identical but have a very different body image as a result of these influences.

http://www.ncb.org.uk/media/861233/appg_body_image_final.pdf

7 in 10 girls believe that they are not good enough or don’t measure up in some way, including their looks, performance in school and relationships with friends and family members. (https://www.dosomething.org/us/facts/11-facts-about-teens-and-self-esteem)

Among high school students, 44% of girls and 15% of guys are attempting to lose weight.  (https://www.dosomething.org/us/facts/11-facts-about-teens-and-self-esteem)

Over 70% of girls age 15 to 17 avoid normal daily activities, such as attending school, when they feel bad about their looks. (https://www.dosomething.org/us/facts/11-facts-about-teens-and-self-esteem)

Over 80% of 10 year old girls are afraid of being fat.

One in three girls would consider cosmetic surgery. - Girl Guiding UK, Girls Attitude Survey 2010

More than 90 percent of girls – 15 to 17 years – want to change at least one aspect of their physical appearance, with body weight ranking the highest. -Girl Guiding UK, Girls Attitude Survey 2010

42% of girls and young women feel that the most negative part about being a female is the pressure to look attractive. - Girl Guiding UK, Girls Attitude Survey 2010

42% of girls and young women feel that the most negative part about being a female is the pressure to look attractive.

One in four 7 year old girls have tried to lose weight at least once.

90% of girls and young women believe that TV and magazines focus too much on what women look like rather than what they achieve - GirlGuiding UK

Education

Seven in ten girls believe they are not good enough or do not measure up in some way, including their looks, performance in school and relationships with friends and family members. (http://www.isacs.org/misc_files/SelfEsteem_Report%20-%20Dove%20Campaign%20for%20Real%20Beauty.pdf)

70% of girls aged 7 to 12 agree that boys and girls do have equal chances in life.

Sexuality:

Recent surveys of teenage girls and young women find that roughly 15% of young females today self-identify as lesbian or bisexual, compared with about 5% of young males who identify as gay or bisexual. (https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sax-sex/201004/why-are-so-many-girls-lesbian-or-bisexual)

According to the International AIDS Charity, Avert, studies have shown that the average age gay and lesbian young people begin the process of coming out is now 16, compared to the 1980's when it was between 19 and 23. (http://www.webmd.boots.com/sex-relationships/features/coming-out-teenage-sexual-orientation?page=3)

These are a number of the issues we will be addressing during our documentary. Follow us on twitter @prettypressures or like our Facebook page Facebook.com/prettylittlepressures for more information! 

Week 3 - Filming has begun!

Filming is underway!

We have finally got our image which will be used as our interface along with the images that users will be able to interact with.


Emma has contacted a support group who help young teenage girls through various issues and pressures and we will be interviewing them during the coming week. We have also set up interviews with teen helplines who will be able to give us professional advice regarding a wide variety of issues whilst also allowing us to be able to direct users to these organisations if they need further help regarding the issues they are facing.

Tillie has been out with the camera speaking to teenage girls who have experienced these issues first hand and can explain how they felt when faced with these pressures but also discuss how they overcame them. This will allow us to have some real life scenarios and opinions that users will be able to relate to and understand that they are not the only ones.

We have set up a Facebook page that you can like:

facebook,com/prettylittlepressures

And as always our Twitter Page is up and running:

twitter.com/prettypressures

If any girls/women in the Bournemouth area are interested in speaking to us about their experiences as a teenage girl and taking part in our project, please get in touch by sending us a Facebook message or tweeting us at @prettypressures.

Week 3 - Creating a Story World

Today we spent the morning mapping out how our documentary is going to work, what features we're going to have, how the user will interact with it and which characters the user will meet along the way.

Our Mind Map

We have decided that our introduction video will be footage of a scrapbook being looked through with pictures of girls growing up alongside facts about life as a teenage girl. It will speed up until finally reaching a title page with a picture of a bedroom which when clicked on will lead to our interface.

Our interface will be a bedroom with various objects that users will be able to click on. When clicked on these objects will take the user to different topics, which could include facts, videos, interviews, audio, pictures, surveys and quizzes. 

In terms of interviews, we have been speaking to psychologists and a leader of a support group for teenage girls that helps with the pressures that teenage girls face. We will speak to these people about each topic so there is professional opinions and advice for every section. We also want to speak to teenage girls who have faced or are facing the issues so we can get an idea of how these girls actually feel and why they think these issues are a problem.

When we presented our ideas to the group we had varying feedback. They said we needed to make sure that we made it clear that it is specifically for girls and why this topic had been chosen as opposed to teenagers as a whole. To fix this we are going to include more female specific topics and broaden our relationships section by speaking to a teenage lesbian. They also questioned why we had no clear ending to our piece. We have not yet decided whether there will be a common end point once the user has interacted with all of the sections or whether we want to omit an ending altogether so that users can just come and find the information they need without having to access all sections.

We have now written all of our questions for our interviewees and aim to start filming tomorrow!

Overall it was a productive day and we are excited to get started!

Week 2 - Style Guide

This week we've been focusing on how our documentary is going to look.

Our interface will be based on a typical teenage girls bedroom with various buttons leading to different content.

Our project will use Norman's 6 principles: Affordance, Constraints, Visibility, Feedback, Mapping and Consistency.

Affordance - We will ensure that the interface is uncluttered so it is clear which items the user can interact with, making it as user friendly as possible. We'll have a home button so it is easy to return to the interface.

Constraints - There will be no constraints within our documentary as we want to allow the user as much freedom as possible. No items hold president over others.

Visibility - The items that users can interact with will be clearly marked and in clear view so it will be easy to know which objects provide more information. Our most important information that users need to know will be within our introduction sequence.

Feedback - In order for our users to know how far through the documentary they are, we have two ideas. We either want a progress bar that is represented like a phone battery as this is relevant to teen life. Another option could be that once you've completed the information on that specific item, you receive that item, so its like you're gathering all of your possessions to go out.

Mapping - We will make sure our buttons are clear, with simple functions that perform as expected. We will use home buttons and skip buttons so that users can move freely around the site.

Consistency - We will use the same colours throughout in order to gain consistency whilst keeping our home and skip buttons in the same place.


We plan to begin filming our footage this week and have begun to arrange some interviews.

learning how to use the documentary software #Klynt with team #prettylittlepressures pic.twitter.com/eHyZzksJ98

— prettylittlepressure (@prettypressures) February 9, 2016

Week 1 - Initial Ideas

As part of the second year of our Multimedia Journalism degree, we must create an interactive documentary on any topic of our choice in a team of five.

Our team is comprised of:

Project Director - Emma Lawford

Graphic Designer - Annie Hopson

Social Media Producer - Abbie Rogers

Content Producer - Tillie Dee and Libby Mewes

After researching existing interactive documentaries, we were aware of all of the different models we could use when creating our own. 

After long discussions surrounding topic ideas, we have settled on the daily pressures teenage girls face. We feel this could be an interesting topic as there are a lot of issues to be confronted and it also gives us scope to film from a point of view angle, taking the user on the journey with us. 

The pressures we want to focus on are thin idealizations and body image, the idea of 'make up is beauty', friendships/popularity and boys/relationships. These are issues that all teenage girls encounter, including us! This will help us gather information and also be able to expand on personal experience.

In terms of models, we are looking to use a concentric narrative.

We look forward to start filming!