No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the authors.
'I Just Want to Hack Myself to Not Get Distracted': Evaluating Design Interventions for Self-Control on Facebook
... Six studies assessed the efficacy of the intervention to address addictive use. Three showed promising efficacy in reducing addiction, including Light-touch [49], Digital Self-control Tool for Facebook [50], and NUGU [51]. The other three did not show promising efficacy, including Grayscale Setting [52], Grayscale and Move App [53], and Parental Control Software [54]. ...
... Six studies assessed the efficacy of the intervention in reducing screen time or device usage. All of them showed promising results, including Grayscale Setting [52], Grayscale and Move App [53], Digital Self-control Tool for Facebook [50], Home App [55], LocknType [56], and NUGU [51]. ...
... We identified two types of persuaders in the included studies. In most studies (n = 12), the digital interventions acted as a support system to help users self-persuade themselves to reduce or discourage their internet or digital device use [48][49][50][51][54][55][56]61]. Two digital interventions were developed to support parents as the persuaders to manage their children's device use [54,62]. ...
Background:
The internet provides valuable benefits in supporting our lives. However, concerns arise regarding internet addiction, a behavioural disorder due to excessive and uncontrolled internet use that has harmful effects on human health and wellbeing. Studies highlighted the potential of digital behaviour change interventions to address health behaviour problems. However, little is known about how and to what extent persuasive strategies can be utilised in digital interventions to combat internet addiction. Accordingly, this systematic review aims to investigate the design and implementation of persuasive strategies in digital interventions to combat internet addiction, including their contexts, features, and outcomes.
Methods:
We searched for peer-reviewed articles from four databases (Scopus, Web of Science, ACM, and PubMed). The Persuasive Systems Design (PSD) model and Behaviour Change Technique (BCT) taxonomy were used to identify persuasive strategies. We included 14 primary studies discussing digital interventions to address the problem and their outcomes.
Results:
Four persuasion contexts were identified, including 1) self-management systems to reduce internet use, 2) analytics systems to examine use patterns and provide behavioural suggestions, 3) parental control systems to manage children’s internet use, and 4) unattractive settings to discourage internet use. The promising interventions used the following persuasion route: help the user determine behaviour goals, facilitate actions to accomplish behaviour goals, and reinforce the user to perform behaviour goals. Potential persuasive strategies were also identified, including goal-setting, action planning, task reduction, tunnelling how to perform a behaviour, tailored and personalised suggestions/prompts, reminders, trustworthiness, anticipated regret, and social support strategies.
Conclusion:
Our findings shed light on the promising persuasive contexts and strategies to combat internet addiction using digital interventions. We suggest future research and practices to utilise our findings to develop effective digital interventions, especially for combatting internet addiction in vulnerable populations like children or people from developing regions.
... A further group of studies introduced a time lag to access the device or service of interest [31][32][33]66]. Lyngs et al. [44] explored inquiring about users intention for using Facebook before opening the application, with subsequent reminders of the stated intention. Their results suggest that inquiring intention decreases average daily time on Facebook and number of daily visits, with a trend towards shorter visits. ...
... By combining a design friction with an explicit option to dismiss, users are given the opportunity to reflect and make a deliberate decision about their smartphone consumption actions. This aligns with dual systems theory by enabling analytical and rational control [44,52]. The interaction flow is outlined in Figure 2. Users can customize different interventions 5 to occur during the design friction, with different lengths of time and levels of interactivity, elaborated in Table 1. ...
... Other research has suggested that passive social media use contributes to feelings of meaninglessness in smartphone use [42] and that specific design features of social media platforms decrease users' sense of agency [40]. There is a growing number of studies in HCI that already target social media overuse, e.g., Youtube [39], Facebook [44], Twitter [85] or Instagram [8], among others. Our results now provide a strong justification to persist in this targeted focus on social media overuse rather than overall smartphone use. ...
Smartphone overuse is hyper-prevalent in society, and developing
tools to prevent this overuse has become a focus of HCI. However,
there is a lack of work investigating smartphone overuse interventions over the long term. We collected usage data from 𝑁 = 1, 039
users of one sec over an average of 13.4 weeks and qualitative insights from 249 of the users through an online survey. We found
that users overwhelmingly choose to target Social Media apps. We
found that the short design frictions introduced by one sec effectively reduce how often users attempt to open target apps and lead
to more intentional app-openings over time. Additionally, we found
that users take periodic breaks from one sec interventions, and
quickly rebound from a pattern of overuse when returning from
breaks. Overall, we contribute findings from a longitudinal investigation of design frictions in the wild and identify usage patterns
from real users in practice.
... An in vivo study [22] suggested the inclusion of proximal goals or micro plans for immediate actions as a feature in activity trackers. In the domain of digital wellbeing, goal reminders were shown to be efective in limiting social media use [40], and that self-monitoring can control screen time, thereby increasing productivity [2]. A recent study [33] diferentiated low-level and high-level goals as values and goals based on activity theory. ...
... We defned goal domains as clusters of related goals, which research on goal taxonomy has diferentiated between social cluster, which includes goals related to family, friends, or giving to others, and individual cluster, including goals related to achievement, education, career, personal growth, or fnance [9]. These fndings are interesting, given that most HCI research on goals has focused mostly on single goals within one domain [40] [16] [27]. This is important since setting and striving for multiple goals permeates our lives, yet we know little of how to support them as clusters of goals rather than merely as sole goals. ...
... With regard to domains, more than half of the reviewed apps scafold such options beyond the constraints of one single goal domain such as health or fnance. This is a key fnding contrasting most HCI research on goal technologies where the focus has been on single goals usually in single domains [40] [16] [27] [22], and not commonly defned by the user. We suggest prioritizing the option of user-defned goals and extending it with that of system-suggested goals across multiple domains in order to better support personal goal setting and users' commitment to them. ...
... Several previous studies have suggested the removal or reconfiguration of the Facebook newsfeed as a potential context for design researchers to tackle. Suggestions in the HCI literature range from complete removal [20], contextual removal that is dependent on the given user's goals [55], to adding various filtering options [51,55,70]. For example, both scholars and sampled users have made suggestions around configuring the newsfeed to only show content from close personal friends [51,70]. ...
... Several previous studies have suggested the removal or reconfiguration of the Facebook newsfeed as a potential context for design researchers to tackle. Suggestions in the HCI literature range from complete removal [20], contextual removal that is dependent on the given user's goals [55], to adding various filtering options [51,55,70]. For example, both scholars and sampled users have made suggestions around configuring the newsfeed to only show content from close personal friends [51,70]. ...
... For example, both scholars and sampled users have made suggestions around configuring the newsfeed to only show content from close personal friends [51,70]. In another study, Lyngs et al. conducted a user experiment where different Chrome extensions were used to compare a control group to goal reminders and a completely hidden/blocked newsfeed [55]. Here, a majority of sampled users suggested that they wanted more granular control over the Facebook newsfeed. ...
Doomsurfing, doomscrolling or zombie scrolling. These new additions to the tech vocabulary have become part of our everyday routine, scrolling endlessly through social media feeds. Furthermore , some users report a sense of compulsion, a decrease in mental wellbeing and an increased sense of distraction. A common complaint among users harks back to the Facebook newsfeed. In a field experiment with real Facebook users (= 138), we investigate the difference between a strict newsfeed diet (where the newsfeed is automatically reduced to a minimum) and self-regulated newsfeed diet (where the newsfeed is reduced, but users can then manage its content). Our results indicate that both of these newsfeed diets are effective at reducing the time spent on Facebook's platform (−64% for the strict diet, −39% for the self-regulated diet). Our findings also suggest that these design interventions come with positive and negative user experiences such as increased self-awareness and fear of missing out (FOMO).
... However, Reed et al. (2023) randomized 50 users to reduce their social media use by 15 min a day for 3 months, versus to a control group, and found that this led to improvements in selfreported health, depression, and loneliness. Finally, Lyngs et al. (2020) randomized 58 emerging adults to one of three digital self-control tools for Facebook: (a) goal reminder pop-ups that ask users what they got on social media to do, (b) cutting the newsfeed (which gives updates about social media friends), and (c) white background (control). Though the first two conditions reduced the quantity of social media use relative to control (and effects persisted in a 2-week follow-up), participants found the goal reminders annoying, and those whose newsfeed was eliminated reported increased FOMO. ...
... However, although the questions about helpfulness were asked differently across conditions, on average, people found the abstinence condition (68.7%) to be less helpful than the tutorial (82.6%) and even the control condition (83.0%). This is similar to other findings in the literature (Lyngs et al., 2020;Vanman et al., 2018) and may suggest limitations of abstinence-based approaches in the real world. Nonetheless, in our study, those in the abstinence condition were generally able to maintain reductions in the quantity of social media use over 6 weeks. ...
Social media use is endemic among emerging adults, raising concerns that this trend may harm users. We tested whether reducing the quantity of social media use, relative to improving the way users engage with social media, benefits psychological well-being. Participants were 393 social media users (ages 17–29) in Canada, with elevated psychopathology symptoms, who perceived social media to negatively impact their life somewhat. They were randomized to either (a) assistance to engage with social media in a way to enhance connectedness (tutorial), (b) encouragement to abstain from social media (abstinence), or (c) no instructions to change behavior (control). Participants’ social media behaviors were self-reported and tracked using phone screen time apps while well-being was self-reported, over four timepoints (6 weeks in total). Results suggested that the tutorial and abstinence groups, relative to control, reduced their quantity of social media use and the amount of social comparisons they made on social media, with abstinence being the most effective. Tutorial was the only condition to reduce participants’ fear of missing out and loneliness, and abstinence was the only condition to reduce internalizing symptoms, relative to control. No condition differences emerged in eating pathology or the tendency to make social comparisons in an upward direction. Changes in social media behaviors mediated the effects of abstinence (but not of tutorial) on well-being outcomes. Participant engagement and perceptions of helpfulness were acceptable, but the abstinence group possibly perceived the content as less helpful. In conclusion, using social media differently and abstaining from social media may each benefit well-being.
... result in "behavioral backlash, " when a person not only fails to comply with expectations, but intentionally contradicts them [9]. For example, in a study of goal reminders for supporting self-regulated Facebook use, a participant said the intrusiveness of the intervention made her want to "stay on just out of spite" [23]. ...
... Here, DSCTs might borrow from motivational interviewing (MI), a directive style of counseling that helps clients explore and resolve ambivalence [26]. This kind of ambivalence is common for DSCT users [8,31]: for example, they report wanting to avoid distractions from an important task at one time, but then also wanting to stay connected via social media at another [23]. MI draws upon the insight in self-perception theory that people become more committed to goals that they hear themselves defend [2]. ...
To help users reduce distractions, many digital self-control tools (DSCTs) use strong enforcement mechanisms (e.g., locking theuser out of undesired apps during work hours). However, these tools often trigger psychological reactance: the desire to restore therestricted autonomy by circumventing or contradicting the tool. We propose ways that designers can leverage self-determinationtheory, an evidence-based theory of human motivation and wellbeing, to support users in internalizing the motivation behind theirgoals and reduce reactance.
... Consider non-intrusive and low-interference user empowerment features. Echoing previous literature [10,35,37,59], such as Amber Case's advocacy for "calm technology" [10], we encourage designers to consider developing non-intrusive and low-interference features for conflict resolution in AI companion applications. In our technical probe study, visually non-intrusive user-empowerment features were widely appreciated by participants ( § 5.1.2), ...
AI companions based on large language models can role-play and converse very naturally. When value conflicts arise between the AI companion and the user, it may offend or upset the user. Yet, little research has examined such conflicts. We first conducted a formative study that analyzed 151 user complaints about conflicts with AI companions, providing design implications for our study. Based on these, we created Minion, a technology probe to help users resolve human-AI value conflicts. Minion applies a user-empowerment intervention method that provides suggestions by combining expert-driven and user-driven conflict resolution strategies. We conducted a technology probe study, creating 40 value conflict scenarios on Character.AI and Talkie. 22 participants completed 274 tasks and successfully resolved conflicts 94.16% of the time. We summarize user responses, preferences, and needs in resolving value conflicts, and propose design implications to reduce conflicts and empower users to resolve them more effectively.
... Numerous past projects in HCI have used behavior change approaches to help users manage excessive screen time [82,97,98]. In this area, researchers find that users desire methods of controlling their own smartphone behavior [114,115] and often regret their screen time in hindsight [112]. Consequently, there is a mismatch between desired behavior (i.e., being in control of when and how long to use a smartphone) and actual behavior (i.e., absentmindedly using a smartphone and being unable to stop). ...
Humans have become exponentially more productive at work due to advances in technology. However, these advances are spurred by a desire to increase output, often without considering wellbeing. Consequently, modern knowledge workers (i.e., occupations primarily involving applying information rather than physical tasks) experience unhealthy conditions such as sedentary behavior, social isolation, and excessive screen time. The consequences of chronic exposure to such conditions can be drastic for users' mental and physical wellbeing. Even when users make efforts to increase healthy behaviors in the workplace, such as by installing standing desks, uptake remains low in practice due to the intention-behavior gap. Technology designers have an opportunity to combat the negative effects of the modern workplace, but they should not degrade productivity for their solutions to be accepted in industrial practice.
Thus, the problem is two-fold: (1) the modern office prioritizes productivity at the expense of wellbeing, and (2) users have difficulty changing their behaviors even when healthy interventions are available. These factors reveal a spectrum of influence connected to both if and how people are motivated to change their behaviors. This thesis navigates along this spectrum by conducting studies and evaluating prototypical systems to build an understanding of this motivation. Consequently, this thesis outlines a vision for a healthy future of work through two approaches. First, we investigate how to design technology to make healthy ways of working a more attractive choice for users. Second, we explore active behavior change technologies that aim to overcome the intention-behavior gap and ethically nudge users to behave according to their own goals.
In the first series of explorations, we investigate technology that inspires users to incorporate movement in the workplace. The works in this section use passive behavior change approaches, aiming to make movement an attractive option that users will choose of their own volition. We used ethnographic methods to understand the needs of users who regularly integrate physical activity into their work routines. Drawing from this knowledge, we developed a tangible prototype to explore technology-supported walking meetings. Finally, we explored using physical exertion as a design element to generate mindful experiences. Overall, these investigations provide a new understanding of how technology can seamlessly integrate physical activity into work routines while creating positive user experiences.
Next, we explore active approaches that nudge users to act in alignment with their own goals. We designed and implemented functional prototypes and conducted mixed-methods evaluations on interventions to increase movement, foster social connectedness, and manage excessive screentime, all of which are issues in the modern office. To increase ecological validity, we conducted three of the studies in the field, including one large-scale longitudinal study. These investigations provide insights into how technology can support users in overcoming intention-behavior gaps to achieve their own behavior goals in the real world.
Based on our investigations, we propose a design framework for behavior change technologies that promote a healthy workplace. The framework draws from related work and incorporates theoretical concepts from physiology and nudge theory. We designed the framework to be beneficial for researchers and technology designers in creating behavior change technologies.
In all, this thesis contributes the following: (1) prototypical systems to facilitate improvements in physical activity, mindful screen time, and social interactions, (2) field evaluations of workplace behavior change technologies, (3) an actionable design framework highlighting important design dimensions and categorizing literature for future developers of ethical behavior change technologies, and (4) a reflection on ethical behavior change. Finally, we discuss open challenges for the field and deploying research in practice. This thesis demonstrates the potential for technology to support healthier workplaces without sacrificing productivity by providing concrete solutions and ecologically validated field evaluations. By advocating for the integration of wellbeing principles into workplace design and emphasizing user-centered approaches to behavior change technologies, our work lays the groundwork for creating healthier and more productive workplaces in the future.
... Although the paper highlighted the biased evaluations well, it neither probed the vast range of response types that can be influenced nor considered the wider spectrum of possible cues. Furthermore, the HCI community has not acted on the paper's conclusions even within the area highlighted, and only a few articles have mentioned demand characteristics in connection with designing or interpreting user studies (Jansen and Hornbaek, 2018;Phelan et al., 2019), with one notable exception being Lyngs et al. (2020) controlling for demand characteristics. ...
Demand characteristics refer to cues that can inform participants in experiments about the hypothesis and influence their behavior. They lead researchers to erroneously infer non-existing effects, undermining the experimental integrity of empirical studies. Despite a widespread acknowledgment of their confounding influence in experimental psychology, experiments involving humans and computers to a lesser extent consider effects of demand characteristics, as computerized protocols are thought to be immune to some experimenter biases. Furthermore, demand characteristics are considered to mainly effect subjective measures. As a result, demand characteristics often remain uncontrolled in studies involving computers, and in particular for objective measures such as performance.
In this paper, we present two experiments that underline the importance of demand characteristics in human–computer interaction experiments. In a text-entry study, we made participants believe they were evaluating a research-based keyboard. This belief led to increased performance and self-reported user experience. In a second study, we conducted a thought experiment on the illusion of body ownership in virtual reality, where the experimental design indicated the study hypothesis. We found hypothesis-compliant responses from participants, even when they did not experience the illusion. We conclude that demand characteristics pose a significant challenge to the interpretation and validity of human–computer experiments, even when they are fully automated. We discuss the implications and offer guidelines to mitigate effects of demand characteristics.
... Similarly, Haliburton et al. [9] showed that imposing customizable short delays when users opened a target app increased intentional use over time. Lyngs et al. demonstrated that goal reminders helped users to stay on task while using Facebook, although with the risk of the intervention becoming annoying [13]. Our study builds on this line of work by exploring the effect of adding small frictions to users' interaction with a social media feed to prevent mindless scrolling. ...
Design features of social media platforms, such as infinite scroll, increase users' likelihood of experiencing normative dissociation -- a mental state of absorption that diminishes self-awareness and disrupts memory. This paper investigates how adding design frictions into the interface of a social media platform reduce mindless scrolling and user satisfaction. We conducted a study with 30 participants and compared their memory recognition of posts in two scenarios: one where participants had to react to each post to access further content and another using an infinite scroll design. Participants who used the design frictions interface exhibited significantly better content recall, although a majority of participants found the interface frustrating. We discuss design recommendations and scenarios where adding design frictions to social media platforms can be beneficial.
... The dependent variable of this study was digital distraction (DD). Major sources of distraction include texts and emails (Blanchard and Henle, 2008;Rosen and Samuel, 2015), social media use (Rosen and Samuel, 2015;Lyngs et al., 2020), as well as online videos and other websites such as gambling, shopping and irrelevant browsing websites (Blanchard and Henle, 2008;Wu and Xie, 2018). Thus, we used the question, 'While working, I stop the task and [distraction source] more than I do at my office' (Chen et al., 2020) with the three different distraction sources-(a) 'read/ write private email/text messages,' (b) 'visit social network sites,' and (c) 'view online videos (e.g. ...
Working from home has become prevalent during and after the pandemic lockdown due to the benefits of saving commuting time and working with a flexible schedule. On the other hand, remote workers face the challenge of being digitally distracted as they rely on digital devices to do work. Extant studies mainly focus on classrooms and digital device availability as the chief cause of digital distraction. Yet, some studies suggest that distraction also comes from our own minds. This study looks into remote workers' psychological factors and hypothesizes that the degree of digital distraction is affected by internal (psychological bearing) and external (work urgency) factors. In addition, it posits that digital distraction is closely associated with non-digital distraction. Our results confirm that remote workers' mental factors play significant roles, and those workers are distracted both digitally and non-digitally. A key implication is that we should not single out digital devices as a cause for distraction. We should pay more attention to the mental status of remote workers and their non-digital distractions besides viewing digital devices as conduits for distraction.
... We daily spend 3 hours and 15 minutes on our phones [25], a number that can easily shoot up considering the post-pandemic times. We experience a lack of control over our usage [24]. A part of the problem is deliberate design. ...
It is possible to design digital spaces that exploit users while the users are unaware of how they are being used to benefit someone else. There are abundant digital means for almost every aspect of human life. To stay in the market, businesses are in the game of seeking continued user attention. In order to take control and leverage the capabilities of technology, it is important to design technology as per the needs of the human mind and resist any exploitation of its limitations. Digital Wellbeing envisions an optimal balance of technology usage to promote work productivity, among other goals to achieving wellbeing.
A number of design choices make up today’s ubiquitous UI on smartphones. Traditional smartphone interfaces propagate interruption-driven usage thereby hindering task-driven usage during device launch. We hypothesise that Interruptions and Distractions both lead to Goal Slippage. Our study focuses on the pervasive menu-grid interaction for smartphone app selection and challenges the heuristic design principle ‘Recognition rather than Recall’ that recommends it against plain search. We investigate the phenomenon of Goal Slippage in digital devices through an experiment that captures the extent of Goal Slippage and Loss of Content with the altering presence of external interruptions and distractions. We find that external interruptions have a significant effect on response times, suggesting Goal Slippage, but distractions did not have any effect. However, a wider spread of response time is established during distractions, suggesting disruption if not complete goal slippage.
Based on the results, we attempt to design a smartphone launch interface, ‘Focus Mode’ for digital wellbeing backed by a set of design principles.
... In the previous sections, we have sketched out a scenario that is as follows: On the one hand, there are multiple interventions, some of which have also been shown to be effective in a number of studies (Holte & Ferraro, 2020;Kim et al., 2019b;Ko et al., 2015;Lyngs et al., 2020;Tseng et al., 2019). On the other hand, we see that digital distractions continue to be a problem that DSCTs seem to not fully address. ...
Distractions are ubiquitous in today’s technology-saturated environments, an issue that significantly impacts learning contexts employing digital technologies and yields detrimental effects on learning. Digital self-control tools, which aim to assist users in their efforts to reduce digital distractions, are numerous and readily available. Despite several dedicated empirical studies focusing on specific tools, there remains a notable lack of information regarding their daily use and helpfulness. Furthermore, the sheer variety of these tools prompts questions about their universal helpfulness and the potential influence of individual differences.
To address these issues, we surveyed a sample of higher-education students, totaling 273 individuals. These students reported on their media use, satisfaction with learning, and experiences with features of digital self-control tools. Our study’s findings indicate a discrepancy in the perception and awareness of these features; those deemed most helpful are among the least known, and conversely, common features are often perceived as unhelpful.
Our research also uncovered a negative correlation between habitual media use and the use of less restrictive features. Another identified issue was constraints on the use of these tools for learning, as platforms often serve dual purposes for both education and entertainment. We delve into these practical problems and propose future research directions to further advance the understanding of digital self-control tools.
... Another area where a distinction between on-and off-task use could contribute is digital self-control tools, which are apps and programs designed to prevent distractions from digital media by, for example, blocking distracting websites. These tools should only be active during learning, and they should not interfere with on-task media use for learning purposes, or during leisure time (Lyngs et al., 2020). The fact that most tools cannot make this distinction is a drawback to their adoption, and users stop using them even though they are actually helpful (Lyngs et al., 2022). ...
Learners use digital media during learning for a variety of reasons. Sometimes media use can be considered “on-task,” e.g., to perform research or to collaborate with peers. In other cases, media use is “off-task,” meaning that learners use content unrelated to their current learning task. Given the well-known problems with self-reported data (incomplete memory, distorted perceptions, subjective attributions), exploring on-task and off-task usage of digital media in learning scenarios requires logging activity on digital devices. However, we argue that logging on- and off-task behaviour has challenges that are rarely addressed. First, logging must be active only during learning. Second, logging represents a potential invasion of privacy. Third, logging must incorporate multiple devices simultaneously to take the reality of media multitasking into account. Fourth, logging alone is insufficient to reveal what prompted learners to switch to a different digital activity. To address these issues, we present a contextually activated logging system that allows users to inspect and annotate the observed activities after a learning session. Data from a formative study show that our system works as intended, and furthermore supports our assumptions about the diverse intentions of media use in learning. We discuss the implications for learning analytics.
... Wang and Mark [55] used the median break length of 40 seconds for grouping visits to Facebook into a single session. Other studies [56,57] have used a threshold of 60 seconds to identify a session of Facebook use. A threshold of 30 seconds has also been used to define the sequence of app usage into a single session [58][59][60]. ...
Background: The robust pervasive device-based existing systems to detect depression developed in recent years requiring data collected over a long period may not be effective in cases where early detection is crucial. Additionally, due to the requirement of running systems in the background for prolonged periods, the existing promising systems can be resource inefficient. As a result, these systems can be infeasible in low-resource settings.
Objective: Our main objective was to develop a minimal system to identify depression that works on data retrieved in the fastest possible time. Another objective was to explain the machine learning (ML) models which performed best in identifying depression.
Methods: We developed a faster tool that retrieves the past 7 days’ app usage data in a second (mean=0.31 second, SD=1.10 second). In our study, 100 students from Bangladesh participated and our tool collected their app usage data and responses to the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) scale. To identify the depressed and non-depressed participants, we developed a diverse set of ML models including linear, tree-based, and neural network-based models. We selected the important features by the Stable approach along with the 3 main types of feature selection (FS) approaches: Filter, Wrapper, and Embedded. We developed and validated the models using the nested cross-validation method. Additionally, we explained the best ML models through the SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) method.
Results: Leveraging only the app usage data retrieved in a second, our Light GBM model using the Stable approach selected features identified 82.4% depressed correctly (precision=75%, F1 score=78.5%). Moreover, after comprehensive exploration, we presented a parsimonious Stacking model where around 5 features selected by the all-relevant FS approach Boruta was used in each iteration of validation and had a maximum precision of 77.4% (balanced accuracy=77.95%). Feature importance analysis presents app usage behavioral markers containing the diurnal usage patterns as more important compared to the aggregated data-based markers. Apart from these, SHAP analysis on our best models presented the behavioral markers that have a relation with depression. For instance, the non-depressed students’ spending time on Education apps was higher on weekdays while depressed students used a higher number of Photo & Video apps and also had a higher deviation in using Photo & Video apps over the day of the weekend.
Conclusions: Due to our system’s faster and minimalistic nature, it may make a worthwhile contribution to identifying depression in underdeveloped and developing regions. In addition, our detailed discussion about the implication of findings can facilitate the development of resource-insensitive systems, in better understanding the depressed students and taking steps in intervention.
... For example, Wang et al. (2014) introduced a delay between when users click "post" on Facebook and when their post is actually published, with the aim of encouraging more intentional posting with regards to user privacy and online self-disclosure [77]. Lyngs to remind users of their original intention when opening Facebook; their aim was to interrupt mindless scrolling and help users align behaviour with value-oriented goals [46]. Importantly, design frictions difer from interventions to promote mindful social media use, in that they are not built into the entire user experience (such as turning a physical crank to refresh a Twitter feed [66]), but are rather time-bounded, distinct "points of difculty" encountered during users' interaction with a technology [15, p.1390]. ...
Discussions about polarizing topics are essential to have, yet they can easily become hostile, aggressive, or distressing on current social media platforms. Content moderation interventions aim to mitigate this issue, though such approaches are reactionary, removing harmful content only after it has been posted. We conducted a mixed-methods experiment with 40 participants to investigate how a design friction that manipulates the temporal flow during a contentious conversation can foster interpersonal mindfulness, a trait critical for productive communication. Dyads were randomly assigned into the Control Group which received no intervention, and the Experiment Group where participants were limited to sending one message per two-minute interval. Triangulating quantitative and qualitative data from conversation logs, questionnaires, interviews, and computational text analysis, our findings revealed a two-fold effect: Experiment Group participants felt simultaneously frustrated by the intervention as it disrupted the pacing of their conversation and interfered with rapport-building, and appreciative of the intervention as it nudged them towards writing thoughtful and task-focused messages. We discuss implications of these findings for future investigation into the design of temporal interventions to influence interpersonal mindfulness during polarizing online conversations.
... This distinction leaves many social computing systems that have built on existing systems outside of the scope of our discussion. For example, research tools have often piggybacked off of social computing systems to promote other goals, such as embedding microtasks into social feeds for productivity [43] or temporarily blocking or altering social websites to encourage a person to do other activities [1,49,54,72]. The interventions of these systems may have a side-effect of potentially reducing how frequently people use that system to communicate, but modifying social interaction was not the primary intent. ...
The CSCW community has a history of designing, implementing, and evaluating novel social interactions in technology, but the process requires significant technical effort for uncertain value. We discuss the opportunities and applications of "piggyback prototyping", building and evaluating new ideas for social computing on top of existing ones, expanding on its potential to contribute design recommendations. Drawing on about 50 papers which use the method, we critically examine the intellectual and technical benefits it provides, such as ecological validity and leveraging well-tested features, as well as research-product and ethical tensions it imposes, such as limits to customization and violation of participant privacy. We discuss considerations for future researchers deciding whether to use piggyback prototyping and point to new research agendas which can reduce the burden of implementing the method.
... Both projects envisage design as an agent that protects users from being sucked into opinion pools, offering a glimpse of what social media could be if they were created with a different intent. Less playful, Lyngs et al. [57] examined design interventions against distraction: they tested design variations on Facebook's landing page with options such as a removed newsfeed or a goal reminder to help participants limit their time of engagement. In the discussion, they recommend allowing users more control over what they see [ibid]. ...
The effects of social media on our society are heavily researched and discussed, but few insights about the role of aesthetic design therein have been gained to this date, despite research in related areas providing precedent: drawing from existing theory on persuasive design, nudge, dark patterns, and advertising, we suggest the term Aesthetic Design Power to conduct a preliminary critical analysis of the design of four influential social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok) as a foundation for critical discussions about the aesthetic design of social media and its impact. We present salient design attributes and elements shared by these four platforms, speculate about the possible motivations and effects of these design decisions, and argue for an urgent need for further research into, and discussions about, the visual design and connected Aesthetic Design Power of social media.
There are growing efforts to reduce the harmful effects of deceptive patterns pervasively employed on e-commerce websites. However, efforts to produce new guidelines and introduce ethical design standards geared towards older adults have been limited. We investigate the potential of a serious game in fostering older adults' resilience against manipulative designs in e-commerce through two studies. First, a survey with older adults (N = 61), explored their attitudes towards deceptive patterns and identified characteristics influencing them. We then created a serious game, 'Shopopolis', to bolster older adults' resistance to manipulative designs online and evaluated its efficacy with older adults (N = 65). Our findings show that Shopopolis is a valuable tool for enhancing awareness, concern, and recognition skills related to e-commerce deceptive patterns. We discuss older adults' unique perspectives on deceptive patterns and consider how insights can shape the design of targeted protective measures like Shopopolis for older adults in e-commerce contexts.
The study of UX dark patterns, i.e., UI designs that seek to manipulate user behaviors, often for the benefit of online services, has drawn significant attention in the CHI and CSCW communities in recent years. To complement previous studies in addressing dark patterns from (1) the designer's perspective on education and advocacy for ethical designs; and (2) the policymaker's perspective on new regulations, we propose an end-user-empowerment intervention approach that helps users (1) raise the awareness of dark patterns and understand their underlying design intents; (2) take actions to counter the effects of dark patterns using a web augmentation approach. Through a two-phase co-design study, including 5 co-design workshops (N=12) and a 2-week technology probe study (N=15), we reported findings on the understanding of users' needs, preferences, and challenges in handling dark patterns and investigated the feedback and reactions to users' awareness of and action on dark patterns being empowered in a realistic in-situ setting.
Many digital wellbeing tools help users monitor and control social media use on their smartphones by tracking and setting limits on their usage time. Tracking is typically done at the granularity of phone- or app-level; however, recent social media apps provide various features such as direct messaging, comment reading/posting, and content uploading/viewing. While it is possible to track and analyze within-app feature usage, little is known about the effect of granularity on smartphone interventions. We designed and developed FinerMe to explore how the granularity of interventions (app-level vs. feature-level) affects the usage of popular social media such as Instagram and YouTube on smartphones. We conducted a field study with 56 participants over 16 days that consisted of three phases: baseline collection, self-reflection, and self-reflection with restrictive interventions. The results showed that while both app-level and feature-level interventions similarly reduced social media use, feature-level interventions enabled users to spend less time on passive app features related to content consumption (e.g., following feed on Instagram, and viewing comments on YouTube) than app-level interventions. Moreover, when self-reflection is combined with restrictive interventions at the feature-level, users were more reflective on their usage behavior than when done at the app-level.
Algorithm audits are powerful tools for studying black-box systems without direct knowledge of their inner workings. While very effective in examining technical components, the method stops short of a sociotechnical frame, which would also consider users themselves as an integral and dynamic part of the system. Addressing this limitation, we propose the concept of sociotechnical auditing: auditing methods that evaluate algorithmic systems at the sociotechnical level, focusing on the interplay between algorithms and users as each impacts the other. Just as algorithm audits probe an algorithm with varied inputs and observe outputs, a sociotechnical audit (STA) additionally probes users, exposing them to different algorithmic behavior and measuring their resulting attitudes and behaviors. As an example of this method, we develop Intervenr, a platform for conducting browser-based, longitudinal sociotechnical audits with consenting, compensated participants. Intervenr investigates the algorithmic content users encounter online, and also coordinates systematic client-side interventions to understand how users change in response. As a case study, we deploy Intervenr in a two-week sociotechnical audit of online advertising (N = 244) to investigate the central premise that personalized ad targeting is more effective on users. In the first week, we observe and collect all browser ads delivered to users, and in the second, we deploy an ablation-style intervention that disrupts normal targeting by randomly pairing participants and swapping all their ads. We collect user-oriented metrics (self-reported ad interest and feeling of representation) and advertiser-oriented metrics (ad views, clicks, and recognition) throughout, along with a total of over 500,000 ads. Our STA finds that targeted ads indeed perform better with users, but also that users begin to acclimate to different ads in only a week, casting doubt on the primacy of personalized ad targeting given the impact of repeated exposure. In comparison with other evaluation methods that only study technical components, or only experiment on users, sociotechnical audits evaluate sociotechnical systems through the interplay of their technical and human components.
Smartphones provide various functions supporting users in their daily lives. However, the temptation of getting distracted and tuning out is high leading to so-called rabbit holes. To quantify rabbit hole behavior, we developed an Android tracking application that collects smartphone usage enriched with experience sampling questionnaires. We analyzed 14,395 smartphone use sessions from 21 participants, collected over two weeks, showing that rabbit hole sessions are significantly longer and contain more user interaction, revealing a certain level of restlessness in use. The context of rabbit hole sessions and subjective results revealed different triggers for spending more time on the phone. Next, we conduct an expert focus group (N=6) to put the gained insights into perspective and formulate a definition of the mobile phone rabbit hole. Our results form the foundation for predicting and communicating the mobile phone rabbit hole, especially when prolonged smartphone use results in regret.
Although media production is a critical concept in communication theory, we know surprisingly little about the timing, content, and context of individuals' production behavior. Intensive observation and analysis of 94 American adults' smartphone use over 1 week showed that although time spent in producing content was on average only about 6 percent of the amount of time spent on smartphones, the production content was more purposeful, expressive, articulate, condensed, confident, personal, and emotionally charged than consumption content. Analysis of the temporal dynamics of production suggests that the content consumed in the minute before individuals' production began to resemble the subsequently produced content. Other results suggest that content production on smartphones was fragmented, idiosyncratic, and purposeful, highlighting the impact of individuals' quick interactions with media, and the need to develop user-centric theories about how, when, and why individuals produce digital content.
YouTube has many features, such as homepage recommendations, that encourage users to explore its vast library of videos. However, when users visit YouTube with a specific intention, e.g., learning how to program in Python, these features to encourage exploration are often distracting. Prior work has innovated ‘commitment interfaces’ that restrict social media but finds that they often indiscriminately block needed content. In this paper, we describe the design, development, and evaluation of an ‘adaptable commitment interface,’ the SwitchTube mobile app, in which users can toggle between two interfaces when watching YouTube videos: Focus Mode (search-first) and Explore Mode (recommendations-first). In a three-week field deployment with 46 US participants, we evaluate how the ability to switch between interfaces affects user experience, finding that it provides users with a greater sense of agency, satisfaction, and goal alignment. We conclude with design implications for how adaptable commitment interfaces can support digital wellbeing.
Public media and researchers in different areas have recently focused on perhaps unexpected problems that derive from an excessive and frequent use of technology, giving rise to a new kind of psychological “digital” wellbeing. Such a novel and pressing topic has fostered, both in the academia and in the industry, the emergence of a variety of digital self-control tools allowing users to self-regulate their technology use through interventions like timers and lock-out mechanisms. While these emerging technologies for behavior change hold great promise to support people’s digital wellbeing, we still have a limited understanding of their real effectiveness, as well as of how to best design and evaluate them. Aiming to guide future research in this important domain, this article presents a systematic review and a meta-analysis of current work on tools for digital self-control. We surface motivations, strategies, design choices, and challenges that characterize the design, development, and evaluation of digital self-control tools. Furthermore, we estimate their overall effect size on reducing (unwanted) technology use through a meta-analysis. By discussing our findings, we provide insights on how to (i) overcome a limited perspective that exclusively focuses on technology overuse and self-monitoring tools, (ii) evaluate digital self-control tools through long-term studies and standardized measures, and (iii) bring ethics in the digital wellbeing discourse and deal with the business model of contemporary tech companies.
This chapter introduces mindfulness as a philosophy and practice, tracing its origins back to ancient Hindu and Buddhist scriptures and its recent development as an applied form of psychological therapy. The practices that typify contemporary mindfulness programmes are outlined along with their potential for exploring issues of attention in relation to digital interactions. Of particular interest here is the ability of mindfulness practice to encourage awareness of unconscious digital habits that often accompany the negative effects of digital dependency. Finally, mindfulness is proposed as a lens for investigating the process by which attentional issues are resolved in digital contexts.KeywordsMindfulnessBuddhismSatiMBSRMBCTMindfulness practiceDecentringRuminationAttentional controlUnconscious digital habits
The CSCW community has a history of designing, implementing, and evaluating novel social interactions in technology, but the process requires significant technical effort for uncertain value. We discuss the opportunities and applications of "piggyback prototyping", building and evaluating new ideas for social computing on top of existing ones, expanding on its potential to contribute design recommendations. Drawing on about 50 papers which use the method, we critically examine the intellectual and technical benefits it provides, such as ecological validity and leveraging well-tested features, as well as research-product and ethical tensions it imposes, such as limits to customization and violation of participant privacy. We discuss considerations for future researchers deciding whether to use piggyback prototyping and point to new research agendas which can reduce the burden of implementing the method.
Recommender systems (RS) are on the rise in many domains. While they offer great promises, they also raise concerns: lack of transparency, reduction of diversity, little to no user control. In this paper, we align with the normative turn in computer science which scrutinizes the ethical and societal implications of RS. We focus and elaborate on the concept of user control because that mitigates multiple problems at once. Taking the news industry as our domain, we conducted four focus groups, or moderated think-aloud sessions, with Dutch news readers (N=21) to systematically study how people evaluate different control mechanisms (at the input, process, and output phase) in a News Recommender Prototype (NRP). While these mechanisms are sometimes met with distrust about the actual control they offer, we found that an intelligible user profile (including reading history and flexible preferences settings), coupled with possibilities to influence the recommendation algorithms is highly valued, especially when these control mechanisms can be operated in relation to achieving personal goals. By bringing (future) users' perspectives to the fore, this paper contributes to a richer understanding of why and how to design for user control in recommender systems.
Understanding how people use technology remains important, particularly when measuring the impact this might have on individuals and society. However, despite a growing body of resources that can quantify smartphone use, research within psychology and social science overwhelmingly relies on self-reported assessments. These have yet to convincingly demonstrate an ability to predict objective behavior. Here, and for the first time, we compare a variety of smartphone use and ‘addiction’ scales with objective behaviors derived from Apple's Screen Time application. While correlations between psychometric scales and objective behavior are generally poor, single estimates and measures that attempt to frame technology use as habitual rather than ‘addictive’ correlate more favorably with subsequent behavior. We conclude that existing self-report instruments are unlikely to be sensitive enough to accurately predict basic technology use related behaviors. As a result, conclusions regarding the psychological impact of technology are unreliable when relying solely on these measures to quantify typical usage.
The notion that digital-screen engagement decreases adolescent well-being has become a recurring feature in public, political, and scientific conversation. The current level of psychological evidence, however, is far removed from the certainty voiced by many commentators. There is little clear-cut evidence that screen time decreases adolescent well-being, and most psychological results are based on single-country, exploratory studies that rely on inaccurate but popular self-report measures of digital-screen engagement. In this study, which encompassed three nationally representative large-scale data sets from Ireland, the United States, and the United Kingdom (N = 17,247 after data exclusions) and included time-use-diary measures of digital-screen engagement, we used both exploratory and confirmatory study designs to introduce methodological and analytical improvements to a growing psychological research area. We found little evidence for substantial negative associations between digital-screen engagement—measured throughout the day or particularly before bedtime—and adolescent well-being.
Productivity behavior change systems help us reduce our
time on unproductive activities. However, is that time actually saved, or is it just redirected to other unproductive
activities? We report an experiment using HabitLab, a behavior change browser extension and phone application, that
manipulated the frequency of interventions on a focal goal
and measured the effects on time spent on other applications
and platforms. We find that, when intervention frequency
increases on the focal goal, time spent on other applications
is held constant or even reduced. Likewise, we find that time
is not redistributed across platforms from browser to mobile
phone or vice versa. These results suggest that any conservation of procrastination effect is minimal, and that behavior
change designers may target individual productivity goals
without causing substantial negative second-order effects.
The effects of Facebook on academic performance have attracted both public and scholarly attention. Prior research found that Facebook use is linked to poor academic performance, suggesting that Facebook distracts students from studying. These studies, which are primarily based on survey responses, are insufficient to uncover exactly how Facebook is used or embedded in students' studying activities. To capture unbiased, detailed use patterns and to investigate the context of Facebook use, we studied 50 college students using automatic logging and experience sampling. We analyzed the activities and attentional states of students prior to visiting Facebook. Results show that GPAs of frequent Facebook users do not suffer. Students with high GPAs spend shorter time in each Facebook session and shorter Facebook use often follows schoolwork. These results point to a possibility that potentially problematic Facebook use occurs when students are in a spree of leisure activities, not while studying.
Emotion regulation in the wild (ER-in-the-wild) is an important grand challenge problem of increasing focus, and is hard to approach effectively with point solutions. We provide HCI researchers and designers thinking about ERin- the-wild with an ER-in-the-wild system architecture derived from mHealth, the Emotion Regulation Process Model (PM), and a circular biofeedback model that can be used when designing an ER system. Our work is based on literature reviews of and collaborations with experts from the domains of wearables, emotion regulation, haptics and biofeedback (WEHAB) as well as systems. In addition to providing a generic model for ER-in-the-Wild, the system architecture presented in this paper explains different kinds of emotion regulatory interventions and their characteristics.
Griffiths’ (2017) response to the recent commentary piece by Ryding and Kaye (2017) on “Internet Addiction: A conceptual minefield” provided a useful critique and extension of some key issues. We take this opportunity to further build upon on one of these issues to provide some further insight into how the field of “internet addiction” (IA) or technological addictions more generally, may benefit from capitalising on behavioural data. As such, this response extends Griffiths’ (2007) points surrounding the efficacy of behavioural data previously used in studies on problematic gambling, to consider its merit for future research on IA or associated topics such as Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD) or “Smartphone addiction”. Within this, we highlight the challenges associated with utilising behavioural data but provide some practical solutions which may support researchers and practitioners in this field. These recent developments could, in turn, advance our understanding and potentially validate such concepts by establishing behavioural correlates, conditions and contexts. Indeed, corroborating behavioural metrics alongside self-report measures presents a key opportunity if scholars and practitioners are to move the field forward.
Self-control is often conceived as a battle between “hot” impulsive processes and “cold” deliberative ones. Heeding the angel on one shoulder leads to success; following the demon on the other leads to failure. Self-control feels like a duality. What if that sensation is misleading, and, despite how they feel, self-control decisions are just like any other choice? We argue that self-control is a form of value-based choice wherein options are assigned a subjective value and a decision is made through a dynamic integration process. We articulate how a value-based choice model of self-control can capture its phenomenology and account for relevant behavioral and neuroscientific data. This conceptualization of self-control links divergent scientific approaches, allows for more robust and precise hypothesis testing, and suggests novel pathways to improve self-control.
This paper explores the policy recommendations made by young people regarding algorithm fairness. It describes a piece of ongoing research developed to bring children and young people to the front line of the debate regarding children's digital rights. We employed the Youth Juries methodology which was designed to facilitate learning through discussions. The juries capture the deliberation process on a specific digital right, the right to know how algorithms govern and influence the Web and its users. Preliminary results show that young people demand to know more about algorithms, they want more transparency, more options, and more control about the way algorithms use their personal data.
Despite social media use being one of the most popular activities among adolescents, prevalence estimates among teenage samples of social media (problematic) use are lacking in the field. The present study surveyed a nationally representative Hungarian sample comprising 5,961 adolescents as part of the European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs (ESPAD). Using the Bergen Social Media Addiction Scale (BSMAS) and based on latent profile analysis, 4.5% of the adolescents belonged to the at-risk group, and reported low self-esteem, high level of depression symptoms, and elevated social media use. Results also demonstrated that BSMAS has appropriate psychometric properties. It is concluded that adolescents at-risk of problematic social media use should be targeted by school-based prevention and intervention programs.
Facebook is notably the most widely known and used social network worldwide. It has been described as a valuable tool for leisure and communication between people all over the world. However, healthy and conscience Facebook use is contrasted by excessive use and lack of control, creating an addiction with severely impacts the everyday life of many users, mainly youths. If Facebook use seems to be related to the need to belong, affiliate with others and for self-presentation, the beginning of excessive Facebook use and addiction could be associated to reward and gratification mechanisms as well as some personality traits. Studies from several countries indicate different Facebook addiction prevalence rates, mainly due to the use of a wide-range of evaluation instruments and to the lack of a clear and valid definition of this construct. Further investigations are needed to establish if excessive Facebook use can be considered as a specific online addiction disorder or an Internet addiction subtype.
Procrastinating with popular online media such as Facebook has been suggested to impair users' well-being, particularly among students. Building on recent procrastination, self-control, and communication literature, we conducted two studies (total N = 699) that examined the predictors of procrastination with Facebook as well as its effects on students' academic and overall well-being. Results from both studies consistently indicate that low trait self-control, habitual Facebook checking, and high enjoyment of Facebook use predict almost 40 percent of the variance of using Facebook for procrastination. Moreover, results from Study 2 underline that using Facebook for the irrational delay of important tasks increases students' academic stress levels and contributes to the negative well-being effects of Facebook use beyond the academic domain. The implications of investigating procrastination as a specific pattern of uncontrolled and dysfunctional media use are discussed with regard to research on the uses and effects of ubiquitous online media.
A growing body of research indicates that self-control is critical to academic success. Surprisingly little is known, however, about the diverse strategies students use to implement self-control or how well these strategies work. To address these issues, we conducted a naturalistic investigation of self-control strategies (Study 1) and two field experiments (Studies 2 and 3). In Study 1, high school students described the strategies they use to manage interpersonal conflicts, get academic work done, eat healthfully, and manage other everyday self-control challenges. The majority of strategies in these self-nominated incidents as well as in three hypothetical academic scenarios (e.g., studying instead of texting friends) were reliably classified using the process model of self-control. As predicted by the process model, students rated strategies deployed early in the impulse-generation process (situation selection, situation modification) as being dramatically more effective than strategies deployed later (attentional deployment, cognitive change, response modulation). In Study 2, high school students randomly assigned to implement situation modification were more likely to meet their academic goals during the following week than students assigned either to implement response modulation or no strategy at all. In Study 3, college students randomly assigned to implement situation modification were also more successful in meeting their academic goals, and this effect was partially mediated by decreased feelings of temptation throughout the week. Collectively, these findings suggest that students might benefit from learning to initiate self-control when their impulses are still nascent.
Today's constant availability of media content provides users with various recreational resources. It may also challenge self-control, however, once media exposure conflicts with other goals and obligations. How media users deal with these self-regulatory chances and risks in their daily lives is largely unknown. Our study addressed the predictors and consequences of recreational and procrastinatory media use using experience sampling methodology (N = 215; 1,094 media use episodes). Results suggest that trait (self-control, performance goal orientation) as well as state variables (exhaustion) are significant predictors of media use for recovery versus procrastination. Whereas recreational media use showed a positive effect on entertainment, which in turn enhanced subjective well-being, negative self-evaluation elicited by procrastinatory media use negatively affected well-being.
Though many people report an interest in self-limiting certain aspects of their phone use, challenges adhering to self-defined limits are common. We conducted a design exercise and online survey to map the design space of interventions for smartphone non-use and distilled these into a small taxonomy of intervention categories. Using these findings, we implemented "MyTime," an intervention to support people in achieving goals related to smartphone non-use. We conducted a deployment study with 23 participants over two weeks and found that participants reduced their time with the apps they feel are a poor use of time by 21% while their use of the apps they feel are a good use of time remained unchanged. We found that a small taxonomy describes users' diverse set of desired behavior changes relating to smartphone non-use, and that these desired changes predict: 1) the hypothetical features they are interested in trying, 2) the extent to which they engage with these features in practice, and 3) their changes in behavior in response to the intervention. We link users' desired behaviors to the categories of our design taxonomy, providing a foundation for a theoretical model of designing for smartphone non-use.
Introduction: The paper provides a preliminary analysis of the effects of Facebook usage by undergraduate students at Luleå University of Technology in Sweden. The proposed research model tests the perceived effect of personality traits, self-regulation, and trust on students' achievements. Based on flow theory, the model suggests negative mediating effects of the use and cognitive absorption on Facebook, concluding that a decrease occurs in students' academic performance but a positive effect on satisfaction with life that would limit this undesirable effect. Method: Paper and pencil survey was run with undergraduate students from LuleåUniversity of Technology and data from 239 students was used to test the model. SmartPLS software was employed to test the proposed structural equation model. Results. Results indicated an extensive use of Facebook by students with extraverted personalities leading to poor academic performance. However, students who are more self-regulated more effectively control their presence on these platforms. Trust in people does not affect their presence and interaction on this platform. Yet students' cognitive absorption with Facebook is only regulated by their self-control and their personality traits, which determines how much time they spend on Facebook. Multitasking skills moderate the effect of cognitive absorption on academic achievement, but they do not impede the time spent, frequency, or nature of use or their effect on academic results. Although students' satisfaction with life significantly declined due to cognitive immersion into Facebook, it appeared not to play an effective role in the students' academic achievement. However, their performance goal orientation was shown to be a crucial determinant of their university accomplishments, which would limit the critical effect of their presence on the Facebook platform. Discussion and Conclusion: Results support in part earlier conclusions about personality traits that rule the presence on Facebook. Trust does not impede on Facebook usage as it determines surfers' use of Internet. Self-regulation and performance goal orientation characterized the students who are more in control of this social activity. In turn, this prohibits the apparent negative effect on their academic performance. Results help students to understand the preliminary consequences of their extensive usage of Facebook and to better manage their social activities on this platform.
The aim of the present study was to create a short and valid questionnaire: the Multidimensional Facebook Intensity Scale (MFIS). In Study 1 (N = 512), we used exploratory structural equation modeling to explore the basic dimensions of everyday Facebook use. The results suggested four factors: persistence, boredom, overuse, and self-expression. The MFIS also had good reliability in terms of internal consistency and temporal stability. In Study 2 (N = 566), confirmatory factor analysis was conducted in order to assess the factor structure revealed in the previous study. The four-factor first-order and the second order model appeared to be adequate contrasting to the one factor model. Based on target coefficient the four-factor second-order model appears to be the most adequate. In Study 3 (N = 531), the convergent validity of the MFIS was examined in relation to Facebook addiction, Facebook passion, Online Sociability and different personality dimensions. The MFIS can predict Facebook-related activities as liking and posting better than previous Facebook scales. The results suggest that this questionnaire is able to reliably differentiate between different aspects of Facebook use intensity.
This study examines the impact of media multitasking behaviors on university students' social and psychological well-being (indicated by social success, normalcy, and self-control measures). To address inconsistent findings in recent literature, we characterized media multitasking behaviors by motivations, characteristics, and contexts. In particular, we examined the motivation of the primary task and the synchronicity of the task when social interactions were involved. Synchronous social interactions were found to be significantly and positively associated with social success, normalcy, and self-control. However, as predicted, media multitasking during synchronous social interactions was associated with lower social success. Further, although increased media multitasking during cognitive activities was linked with decreased self-control, media multitasking during entertainment activities was correlated with increased social success, normalcy, and self-control.
As the science of self-control matures, the organization and integration of its key concepts becomes increasingly important. In response, we identified seven major components or "nodes" in current theories and research bearing on self-control: desire, higher order goal, desire-goal conflict, control motivation, control capacity, control effort, and enactment constraints. To unify these diverse and interdisciplinary areas of research, we formulated the interplay of these components in an integrative model of self-control. In this model, desire and an at least partly incompatible higher order goal generate desire-goal conflict, which activates control motivation. Control motivation and control capacity interactively determine potential control effort. The actual control effort invested is determined by several moderators, including desire strength, perceived skill, and competing goals. Actual control effort and desire strength compete to determine a prevailing force, which ultimately determines behavior, provided that enactment constraints do not impede it. The proposed theoretical framework is useful for highlighting several new directions for research on self-control and for classifying self-control failures and self-control interventions.
Persuasive technologies aim to influence user's behaviors. In order to be effective, many of the persuasive technologies developed so far relies on user's motivation and ability, which is highly variable and often the reason behind the failure of such technology. In this paper, we present the concept of Mindless Computing, which is a new approach to persuasive technology design. Mindless Computing leverages theories and concepts from psychology and behavioral economics into the design of technologies for behavior change. We show through a systematic review that most of the current persuasive technologies do not utilize the fast and automatic mental processes for behavioral change and there is an opportunity for persuasive technology designers to develop systems that are less reliant on user's motivation and ability. We describe two examples of mindless technologies and present pilot studies with encouraging results. Finally, we discuss design guidelines and considerations for developing this type of persuasive technology.
Objective:
To determine the prevalence ofFacebook (FB) addiction and its related factors among Thai high school students.
Material and method:
This cross-sectional study was performed among 972 high school students in four provinces associated with high economic prosperity in Thailand: Bangkok, Ubon Ratchathani, Chiang Mai and Songkhla, utilizing a multistage cluster sampling technique. A self-administrative questionnaire was produced composing of three parts; demographic data, a Thai version of the Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale (Thai-BFAS) and the Thai version of the General Health Questionnaire-28 items. Multivariate analysis was employed to analyze thefactors associated with FB addiction.
Results:
The prevalence ofFB addiction amongst Thai adolescents was 41.8% (95% CI; 38.6, 45.2). Related factors included gender school location, sufficiency ofpersonalfinance, devices ofFB access, duration ofstaying online via FB, andFB usage during holidays. In addition, every 1-hour increase in usage enhanced the risk for FB addiction (OR = 1.12, 95% CI; 1.05, 1.19).
Conclusion:
The prevalence of FB addiction in Thai high school students was found to be higher than in many other countries. Relatedfactors should be controlled in order to reduce FB addiction and its detrimental impacts, such as behavior modification and the promotion of healthier free-time activities. Further studies are recommended to understand why FB addiction is so high in Thailand.
—In recent years, Social Networking Sites (SNSs) have become a major communication vehicle in all societies. Facebook has become the most popular social networking site with more than 2.2 billion users. The pleasure that Facebook has brought has led to some addictive behavior among its users. This study employed the Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale to investigate Facebook addiction among students. In this study, we selected a sample of 441 students in Universiti Teknologi Malaysia as respondents. Results show that 47% of the participants were addicted to Facebook. This ratio is almost the same among postgraduate and undergraduate students, and interestingly, among Malaysian and non-Malaysian. Much speculated factors such as religion, level of income, ego strength and locus of control do not show significant influence on the risk of Facebook addiction. Lastly, the results suggest that as people spend more time on Facebook, there is a greater chance of addiction.
Two studies revealed that admonishing individuals for anti-environmental behavior via interpersonal communication (i.e., confronting) increased pro-environmental behavior. Although there was some evidence that praising pro-environmental behavior resulted in the intention to do other pro-environmental behavior, this behavioral spillover was only found in Study 2. A serendipitous effect was that subtle encouragement to do proenvironmental behavior increased the likelihood of engaging in proenvironmental behaviors and, in Study 1, behavioral spillover. This effect seems to be largely explained by a drive for behavioral consistency. Emotions (e.g., guilt and pride) and attention to environmental behavior information did not explain effects, potentially because participants could attribute their behavior to habits or external forces rather than intentionally being anti- or pro-environmental behavior.
Often seen as the paragon of higher cognition, here we suggest that cognitive control is dependent on emotion. Rather than asking whether control is influenced by emotion, we ask whether control itself can be understood as an emotional process. Reviewing converging evidence from cybernetics, animal research, cognitive neuroscience, and social and personality psychology, we suggest that cognitive control is initiated when goal conflicts evoke phasic changes to emotional primitives that both focus attention on the presence of goal conflicts and energize conflict resolution to support goal-directed behavior. Critically, we propose that emotion is not an inert byproduct of conflict but is instrumental in recruiting control. Appreciating the emotional foundations of control leads to testable predictions that can spur future research.
Why does self-control predict such a wide array of positive life outcomes? Conventional wisdom holds that self-control is used to effortfully inhibit maladaptive impulses, yet this view conflicts with emerging evidence that self-control is associated with less inhibition in daily life. We propose that one of the reasons individuals with better self-control use less effortful inhibition, yet make better progress on their goals is that they rely on beneficial habits. Across 6 studies (total N = 2,274), we found support for this hypothesis. In Study 1, habits for eating healthy snacks, exercising, and getting consistent sleep mediated the effect of self-control on both increased automaticity and lower reported effortful inhibition in enacting those behaviors. In Studies 2 and 3, study habits mediated the effect of self-control on reduced motivational interference during a work-leisure conflict and on greater ability to study even under difficult circumstances. In Study 4, homework habits mediated the effect of self-control on classroom engagement and homework completion. Study 5 was a prospective longitudinal study of teenage youth who participated in a 5-day meditation retreat. Better self-control before the retreat predicted stronger meditation habits 3 months after the retreat, and habits mediated the effect of self-control on successfully accomplishing meditation practice goals. Finally, in Study 6, study habits mediated the effect of self-control on homework completion and 2 objectively measured long-term academic outcomes: grade point average and first-year college persistence. Collectively, these results suggest that beneficial habits-perhaps more so than effortful inhibition-are an important factor linking self-control with positive life outcomes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).
Prior research indicates that Facebook usage predicts declines in subjective well-being over time. How does this come about? We examined this issue in 2 studies using experimental and field methods. In Study 1, cueing people in the laboratory to use Facebook passively (rather than actively) led to declines in affective well-being over time. Study 2 replicated these findings in the field using experience-sampling techniques. It also demonstrated how passive Facebook usage leads to declines in affective well-being: by increasing envy. Critically, the relationship between passive Facebook usage and changes in affective well-being remained significant when controlling for active Facebook use, non-Facebook online social network usage, and direct social interactions, highlighting the specificity of this result. These findings demonstrate that passive Facebook usage undermines affective well-being. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).
Under the overwhelming amount of distractions in our multi-device environment, we have come to realise that more work could be put into evaluating cross-device ecosystems to enhance digital wellbeing. In the workshop, we would like to address and exchange ideas about the topic of digital wellbeing in the following areas of cross-device interactions: 1) the tracking of cross-device activities (how to better track users’ interactions on multiple devices, and how to deliver cross-device actionable insights), and 2) cross-device notifications (how to better fit cross-device notifications into users’ lives).
While many people use social network sites to connect with friends and family, some feel that their use is problematic, seriously affecting their sleep, work, or life. Pairing a survey of 20,000 Facebook users measuring perceptions of problematic use with behavioral and demographic data, we examined Facebook activities associated with problematic use as well as the kinds of people most likely to experience it. People who feel their use is problematic are more likely to be younger, male, and going through a major life event such as a breakup. They spend more time on the platform, particularly at night, and spend proportionally more time looking at profiles and less time browsing their News Feeds. They also message their friends more frequently. While they are more likely to respond to notifications, they are also more likely to deactivate their accounts, perhaps in an effort to better manage their time. Further, they are more likely to have seen content about social media or phone addiction. Notably, people reporting problematic use rate the site as more valuable to them, highlighting the complex relationship between technology use and well-being. A better understanding of problematic Facebook use can inform the design of context-appropriate and supportive tools to help people become more in control.
Almost everyone struggles to act in their individual and collective best interests, particularly when doing so requires forgoing a more immediately enjoyable alternative. Other than exhorting decision makers to "do the right thing," what can policymakers do to reduce overeating, undersaving, procrastination, and other self-defeating behaviors that feel good now but generate larger delayed costs? In this review, we synthesize contemporary research on approaches to reducing failures of self-control. We distinguish between self-deployed and other-deployed strategies and, in addition, between situational and cognitive intervention targets. Collectively, the evidence from both psychological science and economics recommends psychologically informed policies for reducing failures of self-control.
Many people struggle to control their use of digital devices. However, our understanding of the design mechanisms that support user self-control remains limited. In this paper, we make two contributions to HCI research in this space: first, we analyse 367 apps and browser extensions from the Google Play, Chrome Web, and Apple App stores to identify common core design features and intervention strategies afforded by current tools for digital self-control. Second, we adapt and apply an integrative dual systems model of self-regulation as a framework for organising and evaluating the design features found. Our analysis aims to help the design of better tools in two ways: (i) by identifying how, through a well-established model of self-regulation, current tools overlap and differ in how they support self-control; and (ii) by using the model to reveal underexplored cognitive mechanisms that could aid the design of new tools.
Social Networking Sites (SNS) allow users to create a profile and connect with others. Due to the multidimensional nature of Facebook, the most popular SNS, research has considered how usage might be associated with well-being. Three hundred and thirty-two participants (70.8% Female; M age = 21.5, SD = 2.4) completed: The Multidimensional Facebook Intensity Scale, the Subjective Happiness Scale, and the UCLA Loneliness Scale. In regression analyses, 4.2% of the variance in loneliness was accounted for by Facebook variables, with number of Facebook friends emerging as a significant predictor; participants reporting a higher number of friends were less lonely. When subscales of the Facebook Intensity Scale were considered, persistence also emerged as a significant predictor of loneliness. More persistent usage, defined as the emotional connectedness an individual has towards Facebook, was associated with higher levels of loneliness. Number of Facebook friends was also a significant predictor of subjective happiness. These results suggest that there may be positive and negative outcomes from using Facebook depending on the nature of engagement.
Behavior change systems help people manage their time online and achieve many other goals. These systems typically consist of a single static intervention, such as a timer or site blocker, to persuade users to behave in ways consistent with their stated goals. However, static interventions decline in effectiveness over time as users begin to ignore them. In this paper, we compare the effectiveness of static interventions to a rotation strategy, where users experience different interventions over time. We built and deployed a browser extension called HabitLab, which features many interventions that the user can enable across social media and other web sites to control their time spent browsing. We ran three in-the-wild field experiments on HabitLab to compare static interventions to rotated interventions. We found that rotating between interventions increased effectiveness as measured by time on site, but also increased attrition: more users uninstalled HabitLab. To minimize attrition, we introduced a just-in-time information design about rotation. This design reduced attrition rates by half. With this research, we suggest that interaction design, paired with rotation of behavior change interventions, can help users gain control of their online habits.
Digital behaviour change interventions, particularly those using pervasive computing technology, hold great promise in supporting users to change their behaviour. However, most interventions fail to take habitual behaviour into account, limiting their potential impact. This failure is partly driven by a plethora of overlapping behaviour change theories and related strategies that do not consider the role of habits. We critically review the main theories and models used in the research to analyse their application to designing effective habitual behaviour change interventions. We highlight the potential for Dual Process Theory, modern habit theory, and Goal Setting Theory, which together model how users form and break habits, to drive effective digital interventions. We synthesise these theories into an explanatory framework, the Habit Alteration Model, and use it to outline the state of the art. We identify the opportunities and challenges of habit-focused interventions.
Information workers are experiencing ever-increasing online distractions in the workplace, and software to block distractions is becoming more popular. We conducted an exploratory field study with 32 information workers in their workplace using software to block online distractions for one week. We discovered that with online distractions blocked, participants assessed their focus and productivity to be significantly higher. Those who benefited most were those who reported being less in control of their work, associated with personality traits of lower Conscientiousness and Lack of Perseverence. Unexpectedly, those reporting higher control of work experienced a cost of higher workload with online distractions blocked. Those who reported the greatest increase in focus with distractions blocked were those who were more susceptible to social media distractions. Without distractions, people with higher control of work worked longer stretches without physical breaks, with consequently higher stress. We present design recommendations to promote focus for our observed coping behaviors.
Equating users' true needs and desires with behavioural measures of 'engagement' is problematic. However, good metrics of 'true preferences' are difficult to define, as cognitive biases make people's preferences change with context and exhibit inconsistencies over time. Yet, HCI research often glosses over the philosophical and theoretical depth of what it means to infer what users really want. In this paper, we present an alternative yet very real discussion of this issue, via a fictive dialogue between senior executives in a tech company aimed at helping people live the life they 'really' want to live. How will the designers settle on a metric for their product to optimise?
Experimental preregistration is required for publication in many scientific disciplines and venues. When experimental intentions are preregistered, reviewers and readers can be confident that experimental evidence in support of reported hypotheses is not the result of HARKing, which stands for Hypothesising After the Results are Known. We review the motivation and outcomes of experimental preregistration across a variety of disciplines, as well as previous work commenting on the role of evaluation in HCI research. We then discuss how experimental preregistration could be adapted to the distinctive characteristics of Human-Computer Interaction empirical research, to the betterment of the discipline.
People occasionally choose to cut themselves off from their online social network by taking extended breaks from Facebook. This study investigated whether abstaining from Facebook reduces stress but also reduces subjective well-being because of the resulting social disconnection. Participants (138 active Facebook users) were assigned to either a condition in which they were instructed to give up Facebook for five days or continue to use Facebook as normal. Perceived stress and well-being, as well as salivary cortisol, were measured before and after the test period. Relative to those in the Facebook Normal condition, those in the No Facebook condition experienced lower levels of cortisol and life satisfaction. Our results suggest that the typical Facebook user may occasionally find the large amount of social information available taxing, and Facebook vacations could ameliorate this stress—at least in the short-term.
In recent years, researchers have been showing an increasing interest in the conceptualization of problematic Facebook use, and its associations with individual characteristics. The present meta-analysis aimed to summarize the findings of the recent literature on this topic with the aim of understanding the specific features of this phenomenon (that is, its associations with the time spent online and the broader concept of Internet addiction), and the individual characteristics of Facebook users (including gender differences, personality traits, self-esteem levels, and motivations for using Facebook). The sample included 56 independent samples with a total of 27,867 participants (59.22% females; mean age = 23.94 years (SD=4.75). Briefly, results showed a small gender effect favoring females and a positive association between problematic Facebook use, time spent online and Internet addiction, whereas a negative association was found with self-esteem. Neuroticism and conscientiousness were the most clearly personality traits associated with problematic Facebook use, and the strongest associations observed between problematic Facebook use and motives with internal source and motives with negative valence. This comprehensive meta-analysis makes contributions to understanding the phenomenon of problematic Facebook use and its relation with individual characteristics.
Background:
A growing body of research has analyzed the potential risks of problematic Facebook use for mental health and well-being. The current meta-analysis is the first to examine the associations between problematic Facebook use, psychological distress (i.e., depression, anxiety, etc.) and well-being (life satisfaction, positive mental health) among adolescents and young adults.
Method:
A comprehensive search strategy identified relevant studies in PsychInfo, Pubmed, Scopus, ResearchGate, and Google Scholar.
Results:
The final sample included 23 independent samples with a total of 13,929 participants (60.7% females; Mage= 21.93, range: 16.5-32.4). Results of random effects meta-analysis confirmed a positive correlation between problematic Facebook use and psychological distress (r = .34, 95% CI [.28, .39]). Moderation analysis revealed that effect sizes were larger in older samples. Moreover, a negative correlation between problematic Facebook use and well-being was observed (r = -.22, 95% CI [-.28, -.15]).
Limitations:
All available studies used a cross-sectional design thus hampering the possibility to establish the direction of the association between problematic Facebook use and psychological distress and well-being.
Conclusions:
Results are discussed within the extant literature on problematic Facebook use and future research directions are proposed. This research may also inform clinical and prevention interventions on problematic Facebook use.
The interruptions people experience may be initiated from digital devices but also from oneself, an action which is termed “self-interruption.” Prior work mostly focused on understanding work-related self-interruptions and designing tools for mitigating them in work contexts. However, self-interruption to off-tasks (e.g., viewing social networking sites, and playing mobile games) has received little attention in the HCI community thus far. We conducted a formative study about self-interruptions to off-tasks and coping strategies in multi-device working environments. Off-task usage was considered a serious roadblock to productivity, and yet, the habitual usage and negative triggers made it challenging to manage off-task usage. To mitigate these concerns, we developed “PomodoLock,” a self-interruption management tool that allows users voluntarily to set a timer for a fixed period, during which it selectively blocks interruption sources across multiple devices. To understand the effect of restricting access to self-interruptive sources such as applications and websites, we conducted a three-week field trial (n=40) where participants were asked to identify disrupting apps and sites to be blocked, but the multi-device blocking feature was only provided to the experimental group. Our study results showed the perceived coercion and the stress of the experimental group were lower despite its behavioral restriction with multi-device blocking. Qualitative study results from interviews and surveys confirm that multi-device blocking significantly reduced participants’ mental effort for managing self-interruptions, thereby leading to a reduction in the overall stress level. The findings suggest that when the coerciveness of behavioral restriction is appropriately controlled, coercive design can positively assist users in achieving their goals.
The aims of this study were to design and validate a questionnaire to measure passive and active Facebook use, and to explore the associations of these factors with the Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory (RST) of personality. Passive Facebook use describes the consumption but not the creation of content, while active Facebook use describes active engagement with the site. As Facebook has many features, users may interact with the site differently, thereby creating conflicting results when general use measures are assessed independently. To address this issue, we developed a 13-item questionnaire which reflects three levels of Facebook engagement: Active social, Active non-social, and Passive use. These three multi-item scales demonstrate sufficient internal reliability and discriminant validity. To further investigate individual differences in Facebook use, we used regressions to assess the associations between RST and the factors of the Passive Active Use Measure (PAUM). Reward Reactivity was positively associated with both Active social and Passive use. Impulsivity and Goal-Drive Persistence were positively associated with Active non-social use. FFFS was positively associated with Passive use, and Reward Interest was positively associated with all three PAUM factors. The findings of this study highlight how individual differences impact the way users engage with Facebook.
Most people use Facebook on a daily basis; few are aware of the consequences. Based on a 1-week experiment with 1,095 participants in late 2015 in Denmark, this study provides causal evidence that Facebook use affects our well-being negatively. By comparing the treatment group (participants who took a break from Facebook) with the control group (participants who kept using Facebook), it was demonstrated that taking a break from Facebook has positive effects on the two dimensions of well-being: our life satisfaction increases and our emotions become more positive. Furthermore, it was demonstrated that these effects were significantly greater for heavy Facebook users, passive Facebook users, and users who tend to envy others on Facebook.
An extensive literature shows that social relationships influence psychological well-being, but the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. We test predictions about online interactions and well-being made by theories of belongingness, relationship maintenance, relational investment, social support, and social comparison. An opt-in panel study of 1,910 Facebook users linked self-reported measures of well-being to counts of respondents' Facebook activities from server logs. Specific uses of the site were associated with improvements in well-being: Receiving targeted, composed communication from strong ties was associated with improvements in well-being while viewing friends' wide-audience broadcasts and receiving one-click feedback were not. These results suggest that people derive benefits from online communication, as long it comes from people they care about and has been tailored for them.
Networks---especially social networks and news aggregators on the internet, such as Facebook, Vine, Twitter, YouTube, DIGG, and others---rely on numbers to rank and catalog content and status. People interacting online are now using these numbers as a form of "social currency" to rate each other based on how many friends they have, how many "likes" they earn on th