In the ever present battle to stay aware-of and curb personal consumption, appealing to emotion may turn out to be a better motivator than our sense of reason. Students at Brooks School (Andover, MA) have turned to TellEmotion to help them stay on top of personal consumption and conservation.

In simplest terms, TellEmotion connects the well being of a cartoon bear to students’ consumption levels. During low energy consumption, the bear is happy and its well-being positive; during high energy consumption, the bear’s well being and demeanor turn negative. Then animated graphs and visuals keep students aware of their energy consumption as it happens making users continually aware of the consequences of their actions.

“Developed by a Dartmouth College professor and former students, TellEmotion is designed to tug at the heartstrings to motivate behavior to conserve energy. I’ve written here about how hard it can be to act green: Just think of the difficulties in running regularly – and that is just one behavior. Going green involves everything from shorter showers, remembering to turn off the lights, letting Mother Nature dry your laundry and maybe even leaving the car behind.

Brooks is the first high school in the country to use the product in its entirety (it’s also being used in some Dartmouth dorms).” (Boston Glove: Can a sad polar bear make you turn off the lights?)

It’s so easy ignore what we should do. ‘I’ll leave the lights on just this time…I’ll turn that faucet off later….Let’s take two cars…It’s so much easier not to wear a sweater indoors.’ The simple real-time visual of the bear keeps students cognizant of their choices, compromises, and their effects on the larger world. Setting-aside what you know about conservation proves much more difficult when you see a constant reminder.

Update: WBZ Ch 4 in Boston ran a segment on Brooks & TellEmotion. Unfortunately, their video library doesn’t allow for embedding, but I did take a quick screen shot. Click on it to jump over to the station’s site to watch the piece.

Photo credit: TellEmotion