Links to Study:
PLEASE only take one survey.
PLEASE set a remind to do it every day
How does different amounts of exposure to nostalgia affect the motivation levels in teenagers?
Kendall Swensen
Email: swensenkendall@gmail.com
Class of 2021
Nostalgia is something that many teens experience throughout their life, but it is unknown how different amounts of nostalgia can affect their motivation. With motivation being at different levels for everyone, it's important to understand what helps teenagers feel motivated, and in return, if nostalgia can be something teens use to increase their motivation.
The significance of this research will bring understanding to how different amounts of nostalgia affects teenagers. With this understanding, it can be used in order to understand if nostalgia can be used by teens to help them overcome obstacles in their daily lives and improve their motivation when it comes towards the future.
Nostalgia defined: a sentimental feeling that has someone longing for the past.
The current hypothesis is that if teenagers feel high amounts of nostalgia, they will experience higher levels of negative emotions because of their continual longing for the past, and that will decrease their motivation.
Digital surveys will be handed out to participants who will be split into two groups, one that experiences nostalgia at the beginning, and one that experiences it at the end. It will be a set of seven that the participants will take throughout the course of one week, doing a survey a day. They are short surveys and are practically identical and will be used to monitor their motivational change.
COVID19 is one of the larger limitations I face for this. This is because I am unable to collect data in person and my rely on online survey participants.
Another limitation I have is making people feel nostalgia. Since everyone has different triggers to nostalgia, it will be difficult to try and make people think of their past separately.
Results:
Out of the 21 participants between the two surveys:
66.6% of participants felt that their motivation level remained the same.
28.5% felt their motivation increased.
4.7% felt their motivation decreased.
Implications:
The results of this study benefits parents and teachers that deal with teenagers in multiple ways. First and foremost, having the understanding that nostalgia doesn’t help out with teen motivation can make these two groups aware of what to avoid when trying to help increase motivation in teenagers. Being aware that nostalgia doesn’t affect teenage motivation can also help these two groups ensure that teens don’t use nostalgia as an excuse to get motivated compared to other motivation tactics. In addition, data for the group that experienced the higher amount of nostalgia suggests that, depending on the person, higher exposure to nostalgia can have a negative effect on productivity.
Areas for Future Research:
There has been no scientific evidence to support that nostalgia assists with motivation, however there is plenty of room for future research to be done. Perhaps diving more specifically into nostalgic triggers and motivation as a study field, or testing how often teens actually feel nostalgia, or even just making a larger scope for the exact same study, could end up showing a more accurate representation on nostalgia and teenage motivation.
Conclusion:
This study has shown that nostalgia may not increase motivation levels in teenagers, but it doesn’t decrease them either. Nostalgia is an overall positive experience for people of many age groups, and as the study shows, teens are included in there. Teenagers are shown to not be excelling at motivation and nostalgia is shown not to help teens out with motivation. Various reasons were discussed as to why this could be for teens, as well as limitations that were presented in the study. More research could be done in this area to see if different factors regarding nostalgia could affect teen motivation and help teens use it as a benefactor and not a distraction. Nevertheless, nostalgia is a unique experience for everyone that will continue to be used in times where we least expect it.
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