Category Archives: Articles

BBC: “A generation of cyberslackers” (Mark quoted)

April 9, 2015

Some experts question whether millennials are truly committed to changing their ways.

When Gloria Mark, a professor of informatics at the University of California, Irvine, in the US, told her students to track their use of technology for a couple of weeks, most were startled to see how much time they spent on the Internet. They reported that they’d like to improve their attention spans, but ironically, they wanted to use technology to help them limit their technology use.

“They aren’t willing to change intrinsically, but instead want an extrinsic means to do it,” such as an app that temporarily blocks access to email or social media sites, Mark said.

Read the full story on the BBC website.

OC Register: “Edison High School students study cyber savvy” (Ito quoted)

January 28, 2015

By Lauren Williams

Now schools are tapping into Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to connect with students. And students have learned what is appropriate to share.

“I think that message of ‘Facebook is forever’ and ‘authorities are looking at it’ has come through. It is no longer a safe space for peer sharing,” said Mimi Ito, a cultural anthropologist at UC Irvine specializing in how young people use social media in the U.S. and Japan. “I don’t think teenagers see Facebook as their peer communication space anymore. It’s more like how we treat email: it’s here to stay but it’s not the fun, new edgy space that it was once.”

Read the full story on the Orange County Register website.

South China Morning Post: “The Facebook afterlife: what happens to your digital footprint when you die?” (Brubaker quoted)

December 7, 2014

By Lana Lam

Facebook, which has 1.3 billion users, offers two options: the account can be deleted permanently upon the family’s request or it can be converted into a memorial profile. … Jed Brubaker, an academic at the University of California, Irvine who is researching death, identity and social networks, said this Facebook option was a double-edged sword.

Read the full story on the South China Morning Post website.

New York Times: “Click Bait Is a Distracting Affront to Our Focus,” by Gloria Mark

November 25, 2014

The grand challenge associated with our digital age is maintaining focus of attention. On average, people switch their focus of attention when working with digital media about every three minutes. The design of personal computers, smart devices and, of course, the Internet all contribute to this fragmentation of our attention. Click bait as a design element is a natural evolution, and consequence, of the Internet that affects our flow of attention.

Our research has shown that attention distraction can lead to higher stress, a bad mood and lower productivity. While we can’t blame all attention distraction on click bait, as with any addictive relationship, it is an enabler. When we switch our attention to a new activity, the cognitions that we used in the first task remain as we transition to the subsequent task. This attention residue adds to our cognitive load as we keep switching our focus of attention and trying to reorient to new topics. Once overloaded, we tend to do more lightweight activities. And that makes us even more susceptible to the lure of click bait.

Read the full story on the New York Times website.