Kait Walsh '13

Kait Walsh '13

August 15, 2012
Internship forces student to disconnect and learn about life without social media

“I could only talk to the people that were in the room with me, that was it.”

For three weeks Kait Walsh has given up all forms of social media, forcing her to rely on face-to-face communication, instead of through virtual forms of interaction. However, this disconnect was not done without purpose — it is in the hope of gathering research to change the way people think about social media.

Kait credits her connections with Robins School of Business alumni and Richmond’s Career Services with helping her find an internship at Mullen, an advertising agency based in Boston, Mass. “The industry has opened my eyes to an entire profession and specialization that I can’t wait to continue to explore. Beyond priding itself on amazing ad work, Mullen also has a stellar intern program,” she says.  

Charged with the challenge to “make Mullen famous,” Kait and her fellow interns created a project called Social Recess. As Kait says, Social Recess “is based around the idea that social media is embedded in our lives and influences the things we do every day. As a group, we wanted to understand how social media really influences Millennials today.”

They decided the best way to discover how integral social media is in a young adult’s life was to go without it. Along with two of her team members, Kait has done no social sharing or networking, blogging or content aggregation for three weeks. Social Recess’ website explains, “we are giving up all social media for three weeks and seeing how we deal without the force that has become so natural in our daily lives.”

Throughout the experience, Kait and her team have written about and video documented their experiences, giving the content to producers who then publish it online and on social media channels. “The project is the first longitudinal deprivation case study of three Millennials without social media. We hope to develop our observations into insights and create a comprehensive case study that documents our findings and reveals some surprising truths about utility, creativity and connectivity within social media,” Kait says.

Kait is pushing the boundaries and exploring in her Mullen internship, much as she enjoys doing in her everyday life. As an active student on Richmond’s campus, Kait is a multimedia editor and reporter for The Collegian, Richmond’s independent student newspaper, member of the all-female a cappella group The Sirens, and president of the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority. “I enjoy being a jack-of-all-trades, and thus constantly learning and trying new things is a motivation in itself. The feeling of discovery and innovation motivates me to do the work I do,” she says.

Beyond helping Kait secure her internship, the Robins School has provided her with preparation and continuous support in her professional endeavors. “It makes me proud to display all the skills that the Robins School has taught me,” she says. “Not only has the Robins School armed me with a wide arsenal of tools to enter into the marketing industry, but it has also been the catalyst to my own personal successes. My professors are caring and concerned and have stayed in contact not only over the semesters, but over the years. They are curious to ask about my internship and personal journey. I could not be more grateful for the depths in both curriculum and character at the Robins School.”

At Richmond she has also found mentors who have helped her recognize her passion and follow her goals. “I am very inspired by Professor Randy Raggio, who has served as an amazing mentor in the marketing department. I can only hope that one day I will be as much a specialist in my area of expertise as he is in his,” she says.

Through her experience at Mullen, she has recognized her love for advertising and hopes to learn more about video production and creative work in the future.  “I am so proud of Social Recess and my work at Mullen. We hope that our case study will develop buzz about the experiment, and our findings will be used by other agencies in the field,” she says.

Kait and her team’s work with Social Recess are sure to foster discussion and cause people to question the role social media plays in their lives. As their mission states: “Break digital addictions everywhere – we’re living outside our timelines, so you can live outside yours.”