If anyone has not yet heard of the incredible website Freerice, go there now. Really, just do it. It's a website which, through sponsors, donates rice to the World Food Program. And all you have to do is have a little knowledge.
When I was first introduced to this website three years ago, it was an incredibly fun experience for me. Since then, I've been going on daily, though recently time constraints have stopped me from keeping up my former quota of 500 grains (50 questions) per day.
And there was a feature I really liked about it: It was something you could do on your own. Even back then, before social networking was as far through the roof as it is now, so many websites relied on forcing a user to interact with others (which means having others to interact with) to actually have an effect/get the full experience of the website. But Freerice, you could go in and do by yourself. You didn't even have to make an account and log in. It was a measure of your knowledge. The little bit you were trying to help.
However, that changed months ago when "Freerice 2.0" came and completely redesigned the website. It is now no longer really a charity website - it's a social network with a theme of helping donate food.
Sounds like I'm exaggerating? Well, let's take a look through Freerice 2.0.
You now have to create an account to save your totals. (Not to mention that the total I had accumulated before was erased. Damn.) So, I go ahead and create an account. Now, there is a graph across from my avatar showing the ups and downs of how much rice I donated that month. I wonder what juicy secrets led to someone missing a day of rice, hmmmm? It's odd, even though I know that no one really looks through these profiles, to see things visualized like that. Why?
Now, below that, there's a list of my "Friends". Um, I thought I was on Freerice, not Facebook? But the similarities don't end there: After the list of "my friends' latest activity", there's a list of the groups I've joined. Yes, groups. When you join a group, the rice you earn is 'pooled' with the other members of the group to represent the group. The groups are things such as "Finnish Free Ricers" and "Muslims Fighting World Hunger".
But the changes extend beyond the user profiles into the actual 'play' for the rice itself. Now, in the original version, after you would reach a certain total (for example, 1,000 grains or 100,000 grains), there would be a cute little message thanking you for donating, and it would change based on the number of grains. That is no more. Instead, after every 10 or 15 questions, a message appears that says "You've just answered 20 questions in a row", then invites you to "Share" this on Facebook and Twitter.
I've probably made it clear that I don't like the redesign of the website. It's because it enforces what I've taken to calling the Social Model Of Success - achievements don't matter unless a bunch of people know about them. Instead of letting you be content with knowing that you're helping just a little tiny bit in the world, it says "Make sure you join a bunch of groups, so your successes can look even more insignificant!" (Okay, so, they don't say that last part. But you probably guessed that.) I liked getting that little message that admitted that you were doing something. Now, it's "Show it to your friends!" And of course, the concept of "friends" online has been long discussed by many others, so I won't go into it now, but it's another use of language to be pointed out.
And on the other end of this model, there's the narcissism that this social model encourages. Noticed that I mentioned that you're only helping a tiny little bit when you're using this website. But every few questions, the "Share this with your friends!" message encourages you to think that everyone else must be made aware of things that, really, aren't too big. Especially because so many other people are doing them. Think about it: If you 'share' the fact that you've answered 20 questions right on Facebook, you're essentially saying "GUISE! HEY LOOK GUISE! I KNEW THE DEFINITIONS OF 20 WORDS U GUISE!"
So there are many things wrong with the social model of the new Freerice, two of the main ones being almost opposites: 1.You should be able to fully experience a success without its worth being defined by how many others know it, and 2.You should be able to realize when things aren't significant enough to "share" them.
I hope I'm not discouraging anyone from using the website. Despite the design, it is doing great things, and deserves everyone who knows about it using it. But that doesn't change the fact that it has fallen into the trap of reinforcing the social model of success.
