Hello, My name is Elaine Bansil. I grew up in Wahiawa and attended high school at Leilehua High School. I moved to Kapolei right after high school. I went to Leeward community college for around 3 years before transferring to UH West O‘ahu. It took me one digital art class at Leeward to make the switch. If I were an artist's tool, I would be a camera because it has the power to capture any moment and preserve it forever. It allows you to revisit a memory overtime.
Bansil's capstone examines how social media algorithms affect creators’ mental health and contribute to burnout. Platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok constantly change their algorithms to boost engagement. This pushes creators to keep up and change their content just to stay visible. This pressure can make a creative outlet feel more like a high-stress job. By exploring the creator’s experiences, the paper discusses ways to handle this type of burnout, like setting boundaries, taking breaks, and knowing what their brand values are. The goal is to find ways creators can protect their mental health while sustaining their careers online.
The concept of creativity has come a long way. The Old Greeks would call those creative forces muses, other religions referred to them as God. Today people still mostly treat creativity as an aha moment outside the area of influence. However, just by looking at the creative process one can tell, that creativity and creative work is more than just that one "Aha-Moment" (insight). It is clear that generating ideas demands planning and preparation, identifying something of interest like a problem, an opportunity or a challenge, doing research. This then leads to thinking of a solution, allowing time to incubate and iterations before arriving at something “complete.” Students learn that hard work is what makes their ideas come to life and sticktuiveness is what helps them get better.
Through a self-study producing bi-weekly content while managing school and work, she experienced firsthand the toll of creative fatigue. Her project highlights strategies like setting boundaries and aligning with brand values to help creators sustain their careers without compromising mental health. Go and check out her journey!