CACAO: Content Aligned with Creative Achievement and Organization wins Rep. Brian Babin’s 2024 Congressional App Challenge in Texas’ 36th District

When asked what inspired the creation of CACAO: Content Aligned with Creative Achievement and Organization, the students said, “With the rise of instant gratification through social media, the average Gen Z attention span has decreased to around 8 seconds, compared to the millennials’ average of 12 seconds. The new age of social media doom-scrolling has promoted a generation of newer students chasing the latest dopamine boost, resulting in endless hours of consuming digital content that isn’t meaningfully spent. Often, as students, we have found ourselves in this endless cycle, unable to engage in learning meaningful information because we are chasing our instant dopamine gratification. 

To counter this trap of doom-scrolling in perceived passing moments, we designed an app to learn new, engaging information that aligns with one’s interests.  In addition to the informational feed that the user can view, the app includes a to-do list, settings, a calendar, an assignments page, a course monitoring system, and a reminder system for task deadlines. With an updating feed based on the user’s notes and informational interests, we aim to find a way to productively continue learning in passing moments while also being able to manage one’s daily activities in an application at a glance. This allows us to be more productive with our everyday tasks while continuing to stay curious and learn. Essentially, we created an app that we believed would help us best as students and people, in hopes that perhaps the app would be able to help others as well.”