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Screen usage in a nutshell: From society to interpersonal relationships and effects on our brain.

May 29, 2020Group 3

by masa17ac@student.cbs.dk

Introduction

Our object is the screen. At the beginning we looked at four areas that each group member found exciting. These areas were quickly reduced to 3 sub-areas: The history of the screen, the perception of the screen and the cognitive processes of the screen. For a long time we found it a challenge to connect these areas with each other, but now we were able to create a main logic for the presentation. 

We want to start from a meta-level (the society), go over a macro-level (interpersonal relationships) and end with a micro-level (personal impact on our brain). Three questions follow this logic: What was the original intention behind the invention of the screen? How do people today perceive the relationship with their screens? And what is the effect of screen usage on our brain? 

Part one. History: What was the original intention behind the invention of the screen?

First, we pinpointed one key event in the history of personal computer - “Mother of all Demos” a landmark computer demonstration where Douglas Engelbart showcased personal computer in an almost 2-hour long presentation. Engelbart and his engineering team in the 60s had a vision to assist humanity in tackling the growing complexity and urgency of the rapidly progressing world through the introduction of a personal, multipurpose machine. This computer system was ideated as an augmentation tool of human intellect that could take over tasks of various complexity (including even the most trivial ones like making a shopping list) in order to open human intellectual capacities for something more complex and important. In this framework, human and computational technology evolve together in their constant “symbiosis” can facilitate the advent of revolutionary technological advancements and progress of human society. Moreover, the aspect of human collaboration was believed to be highly important and was facilitated through the introduction of collaborative tools- from real-time text editing to video conferencing. 

Making a computer personal in contrast to computational monoliths funded by the U.S. government that could be used only for a narrow list of purposes and usually not without a permission was believed to transform society, education, creativity, and the world as we knew it, making each person, on his own terms, self-reliant and free.

Part two. Perception: How do people today perceive the relationship with their screens? 

Screens have been associated with many negative associations in the past and words like digital detox were on everyone's lips. We wanted to find out if and how the relationship to our screens changed during the Corona period and if these changes could have an impact on the future. For this purpose we collected 6 interviews with a length of 30 minutes or more. We developed an interview guideline beforehand, which included very open questions in a first step in order to not influence the participants responses. In a second step, we asked more in-depth questions on specific topics that were of interest to us, for example data protection. Accordingly, the interviews themselves were also conducted by telephone or video call. 

What were the results? Firstly, it can be stated that the use of the screen has intensified for various reasons. The interviewees, who are already in professional life, now need the screen for all their work activities. Before the pandemic, their working life had consisted of many meetings, which have now been replaced by screen meetings. The majority of people find these screen meetings more efficient than personal meetings, because they do not have to travel to work or other locations. However, informal contact with the colleagues is being missed by almost all interview partners. Nobody would welcome the idea of only doing home office in the future. Nevertheless, there are those who would prefer only one day of Homeoffice in the future and others who would like four days of homeoffice.

As far as personal contact with family and friends is concerned, all participants agree that this cannot be replaced by screens. Among other things, because sharing a hot meal over a video call is not the same as sitting at a table. Regarding screen gaze, the participants were not worried at all. They want products that are tailored to them. But they all had concerns about their use of Instagram and wanted to reduce their time on that platform. However, they found the implementation extremely difficult. Because they referred to it as an addiction.

Part three. Cognitive processes: What is the effect of screen usage on our brain?

Something that is interesting to notice is that this perception of the reader depends on the structure of the page itself. Online pages and physical pages are presented to the person with two different layouts, which leads to two totally different experiences. What constitute a key point in screen reading is the distinctive environment in which the person is called to act on. The digital frame presents itself a stage, in which people are called to perform; therefore, much more choices and pathways are presented – and this is due to the presence of hypertextual links, authorial and publication info, other readers (with comments). The reader can decide to click on certain links, follow the suggestion of the writer to look up a particular study, to share a specific passage with friends, but also to just keep scrolling. All these aspects, of course, contribute to a different way to approach a text, that, according to some studies, leads to failing to engage in consolidation or integration processes regularly. In this sense, the thing about screen reading is that it pushes toward a different kind of process of decodification of content – and this is due to the fact that the artifact in use is different in comparison to the traditional one, with different features and different dimensions to be explored. 

As last thing, the possibility to enlarge the page, to go forward and backwards can give us the possibility to understand the material aspect of it. Each of us is experience this page (the blog page!) in different formats, which in turn lead us to a different perception of it. Someone might be reading it bigger, someone smaller; someone could be using a laptop and someone could be using a smartphone. And those are just few ways of portraying the same content. So isn't the screen just another object, with specific boundaries and features?

While studies conducted before 1992 have mostly shown that reading is slower and less attentive on screen rather than on paper, more recent studies may indicate that it is not as simple. First, it seems to show that reading online is now faster. However, although students may prefer reading online and feel that they perform better this way, research has shown that students actually get a deeper understanding of their readings on paper. So, what’s going on? How does the reading medium actually impact the way our body works? 

There is something about LED screens. This is especially relevant with the increase in use of LEDs in our screens, since they are considered more environment-friendly and energy efficient. While you may have heard a lot of complaints about blue light, I’m here to advocate in their favor! Blue light is actually great for your performance. It inhibits the production of melatonin, the molecule responsible for sleepiness. During the day, blue light may help you boost alertness and elevate your mood, all while improving your memory and cognitive functions. It also helps regulate your circadian cycles by maintaining your natural sleep cycles healthfully. You may now wonder why don’t we just consume blue light until there is no blue light left in the Universe? Well, as you may have guessed by now, blue light basically keeps your brain active. Consumed in the evening, it may negatively impact your circadian cycle, by tricking your brain into thinking that it is not time to sleep - when really, it is. Excessive exposure to blue light may also cause digital eyestrain, which you may experience with symptoms such as sore or irritated eyes and difficulty focusing. Finally (and not to scare you, but…) continued exposure to blue light may over time lead to damage to your retina, causing age-related vision degeneration issues. 

But let’s now have a look at how digital reading affects the way your brain works. Reading on a screen is associated with a specific reading pattern: you’ll spend more time browsing, scanning, keyword, one-time reading, non-linear reading, and reading more selectively rather than in-depth reading, and concentrated reading. This indicates that screens are more suited to concrete thinking, pinpointing facts and concrete details, while paper affords more abstract thinking. To sum up, if you want to remember the dates of a certain event, try to use a screen. On the contrary, if you need to remember why the event occurred or where, then reading it on paper might help. Additionally, screen reading may help remember (which is usually associated with shorter-term recalling) while students who read on paper rely most heavily on knowing rather than remembering, although they need to spend more time reading. 

The last interesting bit about how our brains work has to do with sense-making, and how our brains interpret what we read. I will keep it simple: a study managed to demonstrate (thanks to a bunch of students learning 150 nonsensical words) that the region of the brain that is activated for meaning-making is located in the visual word form area of the brain, located in the left side of the visual cortex. Basically, what goes on in there is a visual dictionary where people store loads of words that they can recognize instantly, without having to sound them (for example, because English is not your native language, you probably learned that CAR is a car, rather than learning that C-A-R is a car!). Ok, so what? What this study means, is that our brains are quicker at making sense of things when it can create a mental visualization of that thing, which means that text is perceived by our brains like a physical landscape of words. This translates into our reading patterns, meaning that we tend to process information faster if we can map them into a physician structure. See where I’m getting at? In the same way that you may remember the bus stop because it is located near the bakery, itself located after the post office, itself located in front of the library (...), you remember textual elements better if you can locate them. That’s why reading on paper may increase your recollection capacities, although this may not be true for all types of information. That’s also why scrolling may disrupt your memory and focus: when scrolling, you don’t realize how many pages you went through: you lose your reference points. This may also partially explain why digital reading has been shown to lead to haptic dissonance. Reading on-screen disrupts intuitive navigation patterns. As you only see one page at a time, you can’t locate how far you are in your reading with, for example, the thickness of the book. You can’t physically feel where it starts, where it ends, how far you have gone, your reading pace - all location cues that help to recall information. Additionally, as readers are used to books and paper material, they expect a certain texture, smell, weight. When these expectations are not meant by the digital experience, it creates an unpleasant experience, which may among others lead to slower adoption rates of ebook technologies. 

Conclusion

Across the years of the boom of personal computers users grew to develop their own personal relationships with them. Though initially computer screens were seen as a space for work and task management, it did not take long until the appearance of first screen-based interactive games, artistic implementations, and the communication technologies of the World Wide Web. With private investment and big corporations taking over, screens became an integral part of our life practices, whether work, private communication, creative activities, or entertainment. The medium-specific properties have generated the medium-specific practices which grew to be inextricably linked to it. 

It became evident that the human interactions with the screen is by no means a one-way action, rather we find ourselves in constant feedback-based interaction. Screens and computer technology have been gradually shaping out modes of interactions, cognitive processes and strategies, that has resulted in adaptive changes. From 60s idea of human-computer symbiosis as a collaboration of two organisms, screens have penetrated our life practices to the point that we can figuratively imagine them as our to physical and mental prosthesis and us as cyborgs that unawares percove this technology as the extensions of ourselves.  

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The rules for screen usage are yet to be written

May 28, 2020Group 3

by dragana.radovanovic@student.unisg.ch

Part one – Estranging ourselves from the screen. The screen has consciously occupied our group in the last few days, yet our handling of this object was mostly unconscious. Most of the time we spent in front of our screens, we followed the same pattern: we sat, turned on the camera, switched off the sound and listened to exactly one person talking. It was a way of dealing with the screen that had become a routine.  But what happens when you break out of this rhythm and become alienated from the medium? This was the experience we were all able to make, together on Wednesday evening, led by the performers Andrea Costanzo Martini and Silvia Gribaudi. At the beginning of the lesson we were picked up in our daily routine. As every day, the credo was ‘Sitting in a chair, heads in the middle of the picture, one person talking’. This initial scene developed; from scanning the space of the screen, into slowly getting up, into using the physical space as well as objects next to us and finally, just freaking out together. Many things were different from what we were used to doing with our screens, during a regular class. Participants were asked to just shout in and share strong feelings like: "I love you". Furthermore, the face was not at the centre of attention, but rather the body. We were encouraged to hold our armpits up to the camera. Things you don't share with people you've only known for three days and would normally not happen in a professional context. Reflecting on the afore described, the screen both figuratively and literally was a frame that allowed us to express ourselves artistically and to express ourselves in a way that we would probably have been inhibited in a screen-free context. Because this experience was so extremely different from what we knew, we felt pushed to the limit in some cases. We realized that the screen is a means to an end and that we actively determine how and for what we use it. It was only these deviations from normality that made us aware of how we usually utilize screens. 

Part two - Imitating offline communication? Massimo Warglien & Costanza Sartoris showed us a world that is very different from our Western ideas, regarding the use of nature to make products. In the manufacturing, resources are traditionally extracted from an ecological environment and converted into products that are then sold to consumers. In this process, nature has a passive position, while humans transform it according to their own preferences. 

The Khasi tribe in Meghalaya, India, has a completely different approach in dealing with nature, as documented by Warglien and Sartoris in ethnographic field research. Their observations are exemplified by the cultivation of the fig tree. The specific characteristics of this tree are being used to build living root bridges. This was only possible because the Khasi people saw the tree as an active member with whom to work with instead of using the material as a passive resource and transforming it according to human design. 

How can these findings be applied to screens? One could look more closely at how nature works and get inspired by those processes and what is around the observer. We think that screen usage should be monitored in order to be understood in a first step. We use the screens so often that we do not consciously perceive them. Only when something happens that seems "unnatural", we feel offended. In this sense, it is important to understand if on-screen life has to imitate off-screen life or rather construct its own rules. 

Part three - Our Progress and the way ahead. Today the last interviews and experiments were conducted. All team members have finished their research and noted down the main findings. Furthermore, first creative ideas for the presentation were collected with the help of the artist Simon Denny. In addition, first attempts to build a guiding thread were made. 

For tomorrow, it is planned to implement the ideas and to add a concise narrative to the presentation and to name interesting points that will inspire the audience to think further and reflect on the screen as an object that mediates our lives.

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Big Brother is Watching You Watching Him

May 27, 2020Group 3

by anna.kalinina@stud.leuphana.de

The critical and quite pessimistic narrative of surveillance capitalism, of hijacking the decision-making, of “nudging” and conditioning, of reducing contingency to the desired outcome though predictive analytics, of subjugating the future to the present is frequently imagined in the scenarios of “surveillance societies”. The radical commodification of human bodies, their (re)actions, desires, and sensory engagement through reduction into profiles whose actions are predictable and minds are “programmable” has been an object for artistic speculation and fiction even before the boom of the World Wide Web. One of the most prolific examples, perhaps is Orwell’s “1984”. And while this book is frequently discussed in the context of socio-political critique, it is worth remembering what kind of role technology plays in terms of surveillance and governance. The Orwellian world is full of screens. They are omnipresent and regular engagement with them is obligatory. The function of screens is twofold. They served propaganda everywhere you go  while simultaneously representing surveillance mechanisms. In short, they watch you while you watch them. 

In contrast to the fantasy about totalitarian power which upon being exposed allows to draw more or less clear lines between the personal and regime’s interests (thought their effects are also not as straightforward) Zubboff’s “instrumentarian” power is far more tricky to comprehend even after being exposed. Its mechanisms are opaque, they run in the background, and require not only awareness but also specialized technical knowledge to be at least roughly understandable and identifiable (though even Google engineers conveniently label them as “black boxes” impenetrable even to the experts). 

What is interesting for us in terms of the topic of screens is how the screens from a “passive” artefact or tool grew to evolve into a “reality-forming” agent that produces the world we inhabit and places us into our own personal “tailor-made” discrete environments. This topic is particularly interesting if one considers the history of personal computer that was conceptualised by its pioneers such as Douglas Engelbart as the medium that will join individuals, empower them to work collectively and in that tackle the growing complexities of our world. 

At the same time, the narrative of surveillance capitalism is just one way of comprehending or interpreting the current state of affairs. Personalization, and “nudging” must not be by default stigmatized and accelerated to the dystopian scenarios, rather it is aimed at “denormalizing” or encouraging us to take a look at the technology that has penetrated our daily lives and practices to the point of being taken for granted. Perhaps, many of us do not see ourselves conditioned by technology, do not perceive the “drama” of the impact of the screen and what is hiding behind or displayed on it, or maybe even seeing a lot of positive developments in our interaction with it. In the end, the relationship with the object is formed individually with each person whose gaze falls upon it. So, precisely the contingency of this relationship is something that would be interesting for us to see in an attempt to distance ourselves from the object though the stories of other people.  

Our group strategy for the last days were focusing on an individual aspect of the project. At this point we are in the stage of trying to connect the expertise that each of us brings to the project, our research interests, and disciplinary backgrounds in order to identify the story we want to tell. 

In addition to self-monitoring and interviews that suppose to tell us about our encounters with screens and those of a number of different individuals outside our group we also would like to try experimental methods where two people from the group are going to read a printed out text and the other two are going  to read the same text from a screen. In the end each of us will have to do a content-related task, such as a summary. We do not yet know what to expect from its outcomes, but, perhaps in making the medium more visible through a comparison with the traditional form we would be able to gain insights into how interaction with information changes.

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Reality through closed eyes.

May 26, 2020Group 3

by 856809@stud.unive.it

One of the most evident features when it comes to screens is of course the visual dimension. Whether we are referring to the use of personal computers or smartphones, what we see with our eyes is a fundamental part of the user's experience.
Starting from the particular position adopted by today's guest lecturer (Paula Bialski), we will share some personal thoughts on the subject – momentarily turning off the usual neutral approach, to allow everyone to listen more and to listen better.

VISUALLY OVERWHELMED––

One of the first rules to be pinned on our common, imaginary whiteboard, at the beginning of this experience, was (and we quote:) “Please turn your camera on at all times: It is a matter of respect and we will not have to speak to a digital void” – so imagine our surprise when, this morning, we were encouraged to turn off it off, in order to get really comfortable and just listen.
The main point of Paula Bialski argument about her lecture style was the need to take a break from the visual dimension of the screen. She highlighted the fact that, especially in these days, with the non-stop need of being online and being productive in front of a screen, people had to reorganize the way they use their eyes – and this could lead them to the sensation of being visually overwhelmed. We are talking about getting tired, feeling the eyes burning, perceiving the need to just listen.
And this is exactly what she asked for: just being listened to.

“There's no need to stare at my face. There's much more reason to imagine a lot of the stories that I'm going to bring you from the field.”

In this way, the screens of our laptops were just another piece of furniture in our desks, there just to bring us the voice of Paula.

––BUT CAN WE REALLY TURN OFF THE VISUAL EXPERIENCE?

Even If we do not agree on the load of energy requested by working and meeting exclusively through the mediating feature of a screen, we do agree on one thing: the visual dimension is fundamental. The lecture of this morning was for sure an interesting twist, a different angle to approach this experience, and a way to enlarge our personal list of learning modes – but when it comes to true engagement we believe that being able to see what is happening is relevant.
We reached this conclusion especially as a consequence of some issues that we are (currently) accounting during meetings for group talks. Due to internet connection problems, we often need to turn off our cameras when we are involved in our brainstorming session – which made us realize that being able to see the other people is very important. Since we can't meet in person, to have the opportunity of observing at least facial expressions and real-time (involuntary) reaction is a way to get to know each other a little better. Most of our best ideas were conceived when we were actually able to grasp each other's moods and to build up a common atmosphere, as If we were together in one big room.

Anna, Dragana, Maylis & Sofia.

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Sun screen: maintaining routines in the HEAT of COVID 🔥😎

May 25, 2020Group 3

by masa17ac@student.cbs.dk

Today, we kicked off the Summer Academy with a morning check-in and a lecture. For some of us, it was their first experience with online teaching, while for others it was just another online lecture. Either way, we shared some common feelings that we wanted to reflect upon in this first blogpost: 

First of all, we all agreed that turning on the cameras felt really nice. Especially for those of us who had experience with online courses where all students had their cameras turned off, we all found that seeing the other students’ faces felt more engaging and more true to the classroom experience. 

We also found that having our own camera on forced us to be more attentive and adopt a studious attitude: just like sitting at the front row in a physical classroom, having our camera on during the online lecture felt like the lecturers had their eyes on us and it would have felt odd to be doing something else while they were speaking. This “first-row” effect had a positive effect on all of us, keeping us focused and engaged. 

Another aspect of this morning’s lecture that we discussed was the choice of the professor to lecture without slides. Our experience was that if such teaching may already make it hard to follow in a classroom context, it makes it really challenging in an online setting. With lagging connections and distractions in our own homes - our families, flatmates or partners walking by, being in another video conference, etc. - it is easy to lose track of the lecture for a few moments. In such cases, having visual cues to rely upon can be greatly helpful and we all realized how underappreciated slides were, especially online. While it is unclear whether lecturers and speakers should adapt the format of their slides for online presentations (and how it would be done), it seems that having slides may significantly improve the capacity of students to stay engaged in the lecture, despite under-optimal learning environments. 

Finally, we noticed that while online lectures can be done in a very engaging and interactive way, it is hard to compete with presence learning when it comes to the social dimension of university. In the classroom, students are given coffee breaks, which are excellent opportunities to simply chit chat and socialize, but also discuss the content of the course, expand on some interesting ideas, etc. 

The second point of reflection we would like to share concerns group work in an online setting. Here, again, the experience was overall positive and we were glad about our ability to coordinate over the weekend and communicate efficiently this afternoon. A specific aspect that we discussed was the dimensions of inclusion that is reinforced when using video conferencing tools. Concretely, when discussing as a group of 4 people, we found that all of us were directly asking each other to share their thoughts and opinions on the topics at hand when noticing that they had become quiet. 

Because the participants appear on the screen, and speakers are highlighted, it felt like we were more aware of who was actively engaging in the conversation and who wasn’t, pushing us to make efforts to make sure that all voices were heard. Some of us perceived this aspect of group work positively, as it may make (potentially shy) group members feel more included, and encourage them to share their thoughts and opinion, thereby improving the participant’s experience but also the quality of the discussion’s output. On the other hand, some of us felt that it might be intrusive to call people out, considering that if they remain quiet, it might be simply because they are thinking about the discussion, or don't have anything to say. 

Finally, we would like to share some of our group dynamics in coming up with a theme for this week. After this morning’s lecture, we implicitly used the lunch break to brainstorm individually. When we met at 13:00, we were ready to share some of our interests and ideas. After we all introduced our ideas, we consensually agreed on exploring “screens”. For better or for worse, it is a very broad theme, so we had a lot to discuss, and we ended up deciding that each of us would cover their main area of interest in relation to screens. We have decided to cover very distinct aspects of the topic, reflecting the variety in disciplines of our backgrounds: 

• Historical perspectives 
• Changes in perception of screens
• Screen culture and immersion
• Cognitive processes in work-related settings 

Our next steps are to dig into desktop research to explore each of these paths and see how they may relate to one another. 

Anna, Dragana, Maylis and Sofia

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