SAVE THE PEOPLE WITH THE
HOLLOW DISEASE —— RELIEVE
YOUTH HOLLOW DISEASE WITH
PEARL HABIT
By: 星河璀璨队
Shanghai Starriver Bilingual School
Background
In this competitive society, teenagers often feel lost due to the uncertainty of the future，
suffering from the “hollow disease”. They lack a sense of goal and do not know what they want.
As an important stage in life, adolescence affects a person‘s development for their entire
life. Parents play an indelible role in the process of establishing a sense of purpose, especially in the
cultivation of positive emotions.
Therefore, to change the social phenomenon of teenagers’ lack of sense of purpose, we
aim to find feasible solutions by studying the current situation of teenagers' lack of sense of purpose,
their relationship with their parents, and the interaction between positive emotions.
What’s “Hollow Disease”?
■
"Hollow disease" is a professional term in the field of
psychology that has only emerged in recent years.
■
Symptoms of “hollow disease” are similar to the symptoms of
depression, such as a feeling of no connection to oneself,
others, and the world, a feeling of emptiness, loneliness,
confusion, and no sense of the meaning of life.
■
The youth "hollow disease" has become a global problem,
mostly due to a long-term lack of sense of purpose evolved.
Research Questions
■ What effect do parents have on the cultivation of a sense of purpose in young people?
■ Hypothesis 1: Some adolescents lack a sense of purpose.
Hypothesis 2: Appropriate parental involvement helps foster positive emotions in
adolescents.
Hypothesis 3: Positive emotions help adolescents develop a sense of purpose.
Research Approaches
1. Available document finding and reading
This study focused on searching for documents related to “motivations,” “parent involvements,” and ”adolescent emotions”
online. After reading the following documents, we participated in some of their assumptions, research methods, and
conclusions.
2. Interview teachers of various subjects
The interviews include teachers’ observations of communication between students and parents, students’ cognition of
future goals, and students’ emotions. This could give us a better understanding of the characteristics and performances of
aimless teenagers.
3. Questionnaire
The questionnaire rewrites the scale for teenagers’ set of goals, and the positive, and negative emotion scale to obtain
information about the daily life of teenagers. Combined with the interviews with teachers, we can monitor the set of goals
for teenagers, their emotions, and the participation of parents in their daily life.
Key Research Findings
For the questionnaire for teenagers, a total of 533 questionnaires were obtained, of which 491 were
valid.
For the questionnaire for parents, a total of 424 responses were obtained, of which 407 were valid.
We compared the teenagers’ and parents’ perceptions of their relationships with each other to reach
our conclusions.
Searching for
sense of purpose
sense of purpose
1. Teenagers are aware of the
importance of their sense of
purpose but are usually lacking in
them.
Searching for
sense of
purpose
Stop
Searching for
sense of purpose
Lack of
send of
purpose
Own send of
purpose
■ 2. Some reasonable interference from parents promotes positive emotions and effective
communication with teenagers.
■ 3. Teenagers who show more positive feelings when communicating with parents have a
higher level of sense of purpose
How parents are communicating with their
children
Positive communication
Lack of communication
Proper
involve
improper
involve
Positive feelings
when communicating
with parents
Negative feelings
when communicating
with parents
with a high
sense of
purpose
3.45
1.89
with a low
sense of
purpose
3.16
2.32
Teenagers
Based on the "Pearl Habit", our group decided to develop a social WeChat mini program
participated by teenagers and their parents named "Pearl Goal” to cultivate teenagers' sense of
purpose. At the same time, the WeChat public account "Save the Hollow Man" was established
to make more teenagers realize the importance of having sense of purpose.
‘Pearl Target’ mini-program
The software used is the official development tool
of WeChat’s small program, and the computer
language used is JavaScript. In the early stages
of small program design, our group decided to
use the form of a hall to publish people's troubles
on it. Different people could also see others' pearl
habits while publishing their own and thus help
each other.
Completion:
■
50 users participated in the testing period. (30 before the national station and 20 after that.)
■ After the national station of CTB, our team keep the testing going. And finally released the
mini-program.
■ We hope that this Mini Program can get widespread and used in different schools to
promote creating a sense of purpose throughout the process.
Influence:
■ 80% of participants have shown increases in positive emotions.
We also posted articles about the hollow disease to raise the awareness of the public. These articles
popularized the phenomenon and causes and solutions of hollow disease to the public so that most
parents and teenagers have a deeper understanding of this psychological problem and a higher
degree of vigilance. Parents can reflect on the shortcomings of their educational methods through
articles, and teenagers can constantly reflect on themselves to find future goals and strive for them.
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