#BeatTheAlgorithm is a demo campaign website made for CS-C1180 - Verkkojulkaisemisen perusteet (roughly translating to: basics of web publishing) course held in Aalto University in the spring of 2023. The idea for it came from observing the increasing disconnect between people's behavior online versus in real life and seeing the need to remind people of the latter. No matter how outrageously polarized the world may look online, most people in the real world still share more or less the same goals, only differing in the particular nuances of the methods to get there. And even if this were not the case, disagreements do not have to be let get in the way of positive interactions, which, most likely the vast majority of real life encounters are.
The almost seven hour figure cited on the homepage implies that almost a third of our lives and half of our waking time has moved online, without us necessarily even noticing it. The danger lies precisely in this ignorance, that causes us not to even realize how badly we are addicted. That is why the purpose of this website is to serve as a wake up call about the finiteness of life and the purposefulness with or without which we live it. The quiz is designed to make you reflect about what you actually like about social media and how much usage is still healthy and productive by asking you to first think about it and then see how you are currently doing with respect to that ideal in the long run. This shift in perspective is not meant to spook you about the shortness of life - although that is very good to keep in mind too - but rather help you evaluate your relationship with social media in the whole arc of your life so that you can be more mindful and purposeful about using it and extracting its true benefits without succumbing to the frequent little dopamine hits keeping you addicted to it.
This currently remains just as a final project for a university course but may eventually be repurposed as an actual campaign website for a larger project trying to actually address the issue. In the meantime, you can follow its developments or check out the rest of my portfolio here.
The source code for this website can be found here. If you are interested about the topic, potential collaborations or other projects of mine, you can contact, connect or follow on: