The Struggle for human attention : between the abuse of social media and digital wellbeing
Giraldo Luque, Santiago (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Periodisme i de Ciències de la Comunicació)
Aldana Afanador, Pedro Nicolás (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Periodisme i de Ciències de la Comunicació)
Fernández-Rovira, Cristina (Universitat de Vic. Departament de Ciències de la Comunicació)

Date:	2020
Abstract:	Human attention has become an object of study that defines both the design of interfaces and the production of emotions in a digital economy ecosystem. Guided by the control of users' attention, the consumption figures for digital environments, mainly social media, show that addictive use is associated with multiple psychological, social, and physical development problems. The study presented develops a theoretical proposal regarding attention. In the first part, the research analyzes how attention has been studied and how it behaves using three disciplines: neurophysiology, neuropsychology, and economics. In the second part, considering this general framework, the study uses categories of the three disciplines to explain the functioning of social media, with special emphasis on their interactive, attractive, and addictive design. Finally, the article presents, as a practical example of the exposed theory, the main results of two case studies that describe social media consumption among young people. The research shows the relevance of the theoretical study of attention as a key element by which to understand the logics that dominate the interactive design of social media. It also uses a multidisciplinary perspective. The addictive behaviors identified in the two examples support the theoretical proposals and open research lines oriented to the measurement and understanding of the attention given to social media.
Rights:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Language:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Subject:	Attention ; Social media ; Digital wellbeing ; Neuropsychology ; Neurophysiology ; Economy ; Addictive design
Published in:	Healthcare, Vol. 8 Núm. 4 (2020) , p. 497, ISSN 2227-9032

DOI: 10.3390/healthcare8040497
PMID: 33227972

15 p, 288.8 KB

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Research literature > UAB research groups literature > Research Centres and Groups (research output) > Social and Legal Sciences > The Department of Communication and Education
Articles > Research articles
Articles > Published articles