Breakfast Buddies Challenge Results

Breakfast Buddies:SocialCalmResults
Conrad Chan
Stanford University
Computer Science ’13
http://on.fb.me/breakfastbuddies

Concept
Breakfast has positive benefits for the mind and body throughout the entire day
Targeting those who want to eat breakfast but have a hard time getting up in the morning
Challenge: eat a meal before 11AM everyday this week, and prove it daily by posting on a Facebook event wall

Study Recruitment
Facebook status: “TO EVERYONE I KNOW ON FACEBOOK- do you WANT to eat breakfast but you cant seem to get up in the mornings? LET ME KNOW! for class study”
Gauge interest
17 direct responses to question, consensus that many feel this way
Invited all of them to study through Facebook message
Matched my expectation that there would be a large demand among college students for this product
Public Facebook Event
Made this my status
On night before event start, messaged all “Maybe Attendings” to reconsider
Email Lists

Iteration Details
1.0- Every night during the challenge week, I would send out an update message that reminded participants about the next morning and included 1) a list of people who ate breakfast that morning and 2) a list of people who didn’t
1.1- Starting on the second night, the messages also include a leaderboard of breakfast attendance
To track cumulative progress
Friendly competition  Fun
Potential Problems with this iteration—will cover later in presentation

Results So Far
Day 1 (Sunday morning): 13/21 ate breakfast (61.9%)
Day 2: 22/24 ate breakfast (91.7%)
Potential reasons for increased percentage
Day 2 follows first nightly message: no one wants to be on the fail list
Harder to wake up on weekends
Day 3: 21/27 ate breakfast (77%)
14 people ate breakfast on their own Saturday morning when the study was already over, even on a weekend with no reminder sent out Friday night!

Quotes from Wall
“eating eggs bacon and bread soon. Can't believe this challenge has gotten me to wake up at 942 to eat breakfast..on a saturday”
“Getting breakfast now! ♥”
“proud to have eaten breakfast today Breakfast Buddies Challenge”
“eggs, toast, blueberry muffin, and yogurt.
‘eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a hobo’”
“bagel! at 9am. miracle.”
“hop up outta bed.... turn my swag on... time to do the Breakfast Buddies Challenge”
“Conrad Chan wake me up in the morning. We can be breakfast buddies like last quarter.”
“It's around dinner time for most of y'all so let's get pumped for tomorrow. woooooOOOOOOO ... BREAKFAST!”

Behavior Design Techniques
Social Accountability
Escalation of commitment
Participants need to say a Breakfast Oath before starting the project
Hot Triggers in front of Highly Motivated People
I send out nightly reminder for alarms tomorrow morning
Motivation huge here: made clear in recruitment process what task entails, only dedicated will sign up
Social accountability here- no one wants to look bad
Smallest possible behavior: I don’t specify what size of breakfast is
A participant considered a Starburst as breakfast on day 1, same participant ate cereal on day 2

Social, Simple, Fun
Social
Wall posts with pictures are inviting many to comment on the board and discuss
Friends reminding each other on each other’s walls outside of event
Simple
All participants have to do is post on the wall before 11AM to confirm their task
I only contact them once everyday (at night)
Fun
Food is fun, pictures make it more fun
Leaderboard for fun competition
Reading the posts on the event wall show that everyone’s having a good time
Non-participants are reading the wall posts
People are continually trickling into the study

Participants trickling in
19 Participants by Saturday evening(before Sunday morning/event start)
However, 21 people in the challenge Sunday morning
24 in the challenge Monday morning, 27 in the challenge Tuesday morning, 29 by end
Additional Participants do not harm the study
Just naturally behind on leaderboard due to late start

Pitfalls
A few members joined the group and were inactive
Weekends are difficult because on weekdays, classes offer an additional incentive to wake up before 11AM already
Problems with leaderboard- may discourage those on the bottom from continuing the challenge
However, after already introduced, could not take away because people on the top would feel cheated
Future iteration may have competition with small groups that would cooperate and keep each other accountable
Some of the breakfast foods were unhealthy
A future challenge could require healthy foods

Behavior Retention
19/29 expressed interest in continuing this behavior on weekdays

View the challenge!
http://on.fb.me/breakfastbuddies

Questions/Comments?
Conrad Chan
cchan91@stanford.edu
Twitter: @cchanman

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Breakfast Buddies Challenge Results

by conjchan on May 31, 2011

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Breakfast Buddies Challenge Results — Presentation Transcript