Digital systems, such as phones, computers and PDAs, place continuous demands on our cognitive and perceptual systems. They offer information and interaction opportunities well above our processing abilities, and often interrupt our activity. Appropriate allocation of attention is one of the key factors determining the success of creative activities, learning, collaboration, and many other human pursuits. This book presents research related to human attention in digital environments. Original contributions by leading researchers cover the conceptual framework of research aimed at modelling and supporting human attentional processes, the theoretical and software tools currently available, and various application areas. The authors explore the idea that attention has a key role to play in the design of future technology and discuss how such technology may continue supporting human activity in environments where multiple devices compete for people's limited cognitive resources.

Digital technology permeates the physical world. Social media and virtual reality, accessed via internet capable devices - computers, smartphones, tablets and wearables - affect nearly all aspects of social life. The contributions to this volume apply innovative forms of ethnographic research to the digital realm. They examine the emergence of new forms of digital life, such as political participation through comments on East Greenlandic news blogs, the personal use of video broadcasting applications, the rise of transnational migrant networks facilitated by social media, or the effects of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram on global conflicts.

This book examines a series of phenomena that have accompanied the development of digital technology and focuses on the attentional processes that these phenomena have in common. Across the social order, complaints are growing about a lack of attention as well as an overriding push by corporations and institutions to capture and mobilize attention. With a particular focus on social attention, the book highlights the need for an increased awareness about the agents that shape attention in our society, the effects that these agents (attempt to) produce, and the means by which individuals and groups may increase their control over personal and social attention. With a range of academic perspectives, this book is a crucial read for understanding the changing shape of political, business and personal communication.

While self-driving cars and autonomous weapon systems have received a great deal of attention in media and research, the general requirements of ethical life in today’s digitalizing reality have not been made sufficiently visible and evaluable. This collection of articles from both distinguished and emerging authors working at the intersections of philosophy, literary theory, media, and technology does not intend to fix new moral rules. Instead, the volume explores the ethos of digital environments, asking how we can orient ourselves in them and inviting us to renewed moral reflection in the face of dilemmas they entail. The authors show how contemporary digital technologies model our perception, narration as well as our conceptions of truth, and investigate the ethical, moral, and juridical consequences of making public and societal infrastructures computational. They argue that we must make the structures of the digital environments visible and learn to care for them.

The rise of ubiquitous information technology--smartphones, unbridled Internet access, and various applications of these tools--has interacted with the ways we are wired to think, feel, and behave. This book provides a fascinating look at the impact of the Internet and technology through the lens of human capacity. Chapters examine what makes these technologies so addictive; their effect on emotional well-being, memory, learning, and driving; replenishing depleted cognitive reserves; and how to chart a way forward in the attention economy.

In the context of debates surrounding the effects of new technologies on our mental faculties, particularly the attention span, this volume addresses the notion of a deterioration of attention, and the related ideas of cognitive overload, an inability to concentrate, and attention deficit disorder. Through a new conceptualization of attention based not on individualistic or universalistic approaches, but centered instead on the cultural and social variability of cognitive processes and the multiplicity of forces and environments that encourage, stimulate, and inhibit certain cognitive mechanisms, the author rejects the idea of a degradation or crisis of attention and proposes an alternative vision of the problem of attention in contemporary societies. Placing cultural conventions, social norms, and ecological environments at the forefront of our understanding of individual and collective attention, Attention and its Crisis in Digital Society will appeal to scholars of sociology, psychology, and philosophy with interests in social theory, cognitive processes, and the criticisms often levelled at digital society and new technologies.

Argues that human freedom is threatened by systems of intelligent persuasion developed by tech giants who compete for our time and attention. This title is also available as Open Access.

Information overload, the shallows, weapons of mass distraction, the googlization of minds: countless commentators condemn the flood of images and information that dooms us to a pathological attention deficit. In this new book, cultural theorist Yves Citton goes against the tide of these standard laments to offer a new perspective on the problem of attention in the digital age. Phrases like paying attention and investing ones attention attest to our mistaken belief that attention can be conceptualized in narrow economic terms. We are constantly drawn towards attempts to quantify and commodify attention, even down to counting the number of 'likes' a picture receives on Facebook or a video on YouTube. By contrast, Citton argues that we should conceptualize attention as a kind of ecology and examine how the many different environments to which we are exposed – from advertising to literature, search engines to performance art – condition our attention in different ways. In a world where the demands on our attention are ever-increasing, this timely and original book will be of great interest to students and scholars in media and communications and in literary and cultural studies, and to anyone concerned about the long-term consequences of the profusion of images as well as digital content in the age of the internet.

This book presents the proceedings of the NeuroIS Retreat 2019, held on June 4–6 in Vienna, Austria, reporting on topics at the intersection of information systems (IS) research, neurophysiology and the brain sciences. Featuring the latest findings from top scholars in the field, it offers detailed insights into the neurobiology underlying IS behavior, essential methods and tools and their applications for IS, as well as applying neuroscience and neurophysiological to advance IS theory.

Individuals with disabilities often have difficulty accomplishing tasks, living independently, and utilizing information technologies; simple aspects of daily life taken for granted by non-disabled individuals. Assistive Technologies: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications presents a comprehensive collection of research, developments, and knowledge on technologies that enable disabled individuals to function effectively and accomplish otherwise impossible tasks. These volumes serve as a crucial reference source for experts in fields as diverse as healthcare, information science, education, engineering, and human-computer interaction, with applications bridging multiple disciplines.