Hack the Change 2026
Know what your scroll is doing to your mood
A desktop app that notices how short-form content changes your mood, and shows you which content lifts you and which drains you.
Camera frames and screenshots are processed in memory and never saved.
Doomscrolling quietly shapes how we feel. Most of us never see it happen.
Invisible
You don't notice the mood shift while it's happening — it just feels like time passing.
Compounding
Hours of short-form content add up, session after session, without anyone tallying it.
No feedback
No app tells you which content actually hurts — so the pattern just keeps repeating.
The prompt
"How can we leverage technology to promote health, social connection, and well-being in our communities?"
How BehindFeed answers it
- HealthCatches the invisible mood dips that build up during long scroll sessions, before they become the norm.
- Well-beingTurns scrolling from a passive habit into a reflective one, with a session report instead of a void.
- Social connectionOnce you see which feeds drain you, it's easier to close the app and be present with people instead.
How it works
See your scroll sessions clearly
01 · Detects the app
Detects when you open Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, X or Facebook, and only then turns the camera on.
02 · Reads your mood
Reads your facial expression locally and spots when your mood switches.
03 · Labels the content
At each switch, grabs the screen briefly to label what you were watching (category, tone, topic), then discards it.
04 · Shows the report
Shows you a session report: a mood timeline plus the content that moved it, and one personal goal.
Architecture
How the pieces fit together
Privacy
Built to watch less, not more
Face frames never saved
Only the emotion label and a timestamp are stored — the camera frame itself is discarded instantly.
Screenshots labelled then deleted
A screen grab is used once to label category, tone and topic, then it's gone.
Camera only during social media
The camera turns on only while a short-form app is open, and off the rest of the time.
Pause anytime
One click stops all camera and screen access, instantly and completely.
These are mood signals across many switches, not a medical diagnosis.
After a session
A report, not a guess
Mood timeline
Sample sessionTop trigger (sample)
Short-form comedy clips
Linked to 3 of 4 mood dips this session.
This week's goal (sample)
Cut late-night TikTok by 20%
Based on patterns across your last 5 sessions.
Tech stack
Built fast, built honestly
Vision (face)
Vision (screen)
Backend
Frontend / desktop
Hackathon resources
Who it's for
For anyone trying to break a doomscrolling habit
If you've ever closed an app and felt worse than when you opened it, but couldn't say exactly why, BehindFeed is built to show you the "why" — one session at a time.
Team
Four people, one 24-hour build
Raad
Computer Vision, face
Giresh
Computer Vision, screen
Allen
Backend
Cheema
Frontend