What Does Everyday Media Use Look Like? (and why this might bias our perception of digital media's effects)

Two brief anecdotes:

1: I’m sitting in Railroad Park in Birmingham, enjoying a breezy, temperate Saturday morning. A few folks pose for a photo that someone else takes with a smartphone. I guess I notice these people first in part because I cannot take a picture with my smartphone - the camera in it is broken. There is nothing like being robbed of something that you have taken for granted to get you to notice it more and to think about it more. I see a few other people in the park typing messages on their smartphones. Other people talk to one another face-to-face. Others stand around and take in the landscape, pet other people’s dogs, read a magazine or a book. And here I sit, typing on a laptop. What do we look like to each other? What kinds of assumptions might we be making about each other based on what we're doing in a public place with or without media technologies?

2: I'm enjoying a beer and a musical performance at Band of Brothers, a new brewery here in Tuscaloosa. The beer, the music, and the general vibe are all great. At the end of the performance, the lead singer, an elegant, attractive, charismatic young woman sits down at a table near the stage, gets out her smartphone, and seems to instantly transform herself into a zombie, hunched over a tiny screen that illuminates her dead-eyed stare.

It isn't hard to find people who are concerned about excessive media technology use (in particular excessive smartphone use). The most popular books about digital media use and the most popular articles take a pretty dim view of it. If there was a utopic moment in the history of such technologies, that moment seems to have passed. This recent commercial for Cisco feels like a relic of a time before we became so deeply suspicious of digital media (perhaps it's a response to that suspicion. Why else would we need a "pep talk" about the virtues of technology?). 

Where do we get these ideas about media use? Or: why are we so keen to agree with, and so reluctant to question, those who provide anecdotal evidence of its ill effects?

Often times, we are heavily influenced by our direct observations: we look at the people around us, the students in our classes, the family members at our cookouts, the friends at parties, the kids at our friends' houses, and the people in the park. Direct observation informs our intuition, and we seek out confirmation of that intuition in the books, blogs, articles, and documentaries we consume.

I've been thinking about how the relationship between our typical first-hand observations of media use and the actual fact of media use (regardless of whether or not it is observed by others) has changed over the years, and how this might influence our opinions of media use and its effects and may, in part, account for the dystopic view that seems to be dominating public discourse on the topic. 

One change: media use has become more public, and hence more visible. People watched a lot of TV before, teens used instant messenger a lot before, but they engaged in these activities mostly in their own homes. The ascendant variety of media use, mobile media use (primarily smartphones), is much easier to observe than TV use or AIM use on a home computer. Thus, we may think that there is a lot more media use going on than there was before, but this may be distorted by the fact that it is simply more easily observed. Evidence suggests that average screen time is increasing, but by the way people talk about digital media, you would think we spent very little time staring at screens before the smartphone, or that smartphones have doubled the amount of time people spend looking at screens (the real change in average screen time among Americans over the past 4 years is probably around 7%).

There are, of course, older media that are used in public: books, newspapers, and magazines. But there is an important difference between print media and smartphones: in the case of print media, it is easy for observers to know precisely what the print media user is reading while it is difficult for observers to tell what users are doing with mobile media. Observers cannot see the screens of smartphone or tablet users; even when observers physically can see the screens, there is an expectation that they do not look too closely at them. So, observers know that the other person is using media but they don’t know how they are using it: work email, liberal news, conservative news, nearby places to eat, connecting with family members on social media, bragging on social media, looking up how to build a bomb, how to build a raised-bed garden, etc.

What they are doing with media really matters. If they’re being social and supporting others while staring at the plastic rectangles in their hands, then this is very different than obsessing over how many people like what they've just posted on social media, and both these things can be done on the same website or application (e.g., Snapchat, Facebook, Reddit). There is such a broad range of activities in which a public media user could be engaged. My sense is that an anxiety arises simply because observers know so little about others that they share space with.

Then there's the question of what people would be doing if they weren’t using their phones. How do the particular activities in which they are engaged on their smartphones stack up to those other possibilities? If they weren't engaged in those media use activities, would they be talking to other strangers face-to-face? Would they be reading a magazine? Would they have spent time in deep, productive contemplation? Would they have stood there and dwelt on a mistake they made the day before? Would they have stayed home and watched TV? I ask these questions not in a rhetorical sense, to assert that the fear and resentment so many feel about media use is exaggerated. I raise them because I honestly don’t know, and that I believe that one cannot honestly say whether the fears about increased screen time and smart phones are justified or not without evidence that speaks to these questions. 

What about witnessing the media use not of strangers, but of someone more familiar to us: a friend, spouse, parent? Our observations of strangers are largely free of interpersonal influences; whether two people at the park talk to one another or ignore one another and stare at their smartphones doesn't directly affect our interpersonal relationships with them or anyone else. It's simply a snapshot of behavior in our society. When we witness the media use of someone with whom we have some sort of relationship, there is an emotional component to our judgment of their use. Commonly, we compare their media use to one particular alternative: having a good conversation with us.

This view ignores other alternatives. If they didn't have a smartphone or laptop, perhaps they would have elected to watch television, or would have elected to leave the room and call a friend on a landline phone in the other room, or would have read a book, newspaper, or magazine. Perhaps we would have had all of their attention instead of some of it, but perhaps we would have had none of it. We only see that they are not talking to us, which is something we wouldn't see and be reminded of if they were not in the room with us.

Compare the experience of sharing a room with someone you know while that person uses a smartphone to the experience of watching TV with someone you know. In the case of the TV-watching friend, we know what our friend is watching; we're watching it, too. In the case of the digital media user, we're likely to fear the worst when we can't see what the other person is doing on their smartphone or laptop, and the fear (of not really knowing this person and what they're up to) likely has a greater impact on us when it is a close friend, spouse, child, or parent. TV can spark conversation, but then again, so can smartphone use. During my casual observations of smartphone use at bars and coffee shops, I've noticed frequent "screen sharing" behavior in which phone use serves as the impetus for conversation rather than an alternative to it. I've also participated in such "phone-aided" conversations at home with my wife.

When we see other people using smartphones and laptops, we feel ignored. We often compare the situation to ideal alternatives rather than making the effort to determine what the likely alternatives might be. We don't think about what the person is doing with the media (often because the expectation of privacy prevents us from knowing this). When we see the elegant, charismatic performer transformed into a hunched-back zombie, we feel a visceral repulsion. This is what we do by default. We then seek out justification for these feelings in anecdotes, books, articles, documentaries, etc.

Making any sort of correct judgment about the impact of media technologies on society necessitates that we recognize the ways in which we respond emotionally to the sight of other people's media use. By the looks of the most popular opinions on smartphone and laptop use, many of us have yet to take that step.

What are you doing on that phone?

I wrote a sort of stray observation in the conclusion of my dissertation about a certain attribute of new media technologies: the way in which screens on portable technologies are typically oriented to face toward the user and remain obscure to others. The concerns over privacy vis a vis these media relates primarily to strangers (e.g., governments, corporations) knowing very private things about us and possibly using them against us. But in another way, these devices give us more privacy, privacy in our immediate physical surroundings. The screen orientation makes it harder to see what someone is watching, reading, or doing on their device, but what's more, there is an expectation that others not snoop and try to see what the user is watching/reading/doing.

I've been thinking about this, thinking about how it relates to the fact that we consider it to be rude when others are not paying attention to us but paying attention to their devices instead. I'm not talking about the moments when interaction is clearly expected (e.g., a job interview, a first date). Most of our lives are made up of moments where we are in the presence of others that we could converse with, but that it is not explicitly expected: hanging out with old friends, a lazy Sunday afternoon with a spouse. I think that part of the reason it feel can so alienating or discomforting to be in the presence of someone who is using a device is precisely because we do not know what he/she is reading/viewing/doing.

Here's a counter-example: someone you're hanging out with is reading a book. They're not talking to you, and you can't see precisely what they see (as you would if you were watching TV together), but you know the type of experience he or she is having. With a book, we know where we stand. We know what we're competing with. There is a sense of the psychic distance between ourselves and the person with which we share physical space. With a phone or a laptop? The person could be doing work, seeking out a better-looking partner than you, reading that website you hate, or that one that you love. I suppose that part of the anxiety comes from the fact that even if they're doing something you don't like, you can't do anything about it because you must respect their privacy.

There are ways to test this effect. It would probably work best with significant others, who have a long-term relationship and incentive to stay on each other's good sides and probably have some existing feelings regarding the other person's behavior. Get one person in a room with another who is either reading a book or a magazine, or get the person in a room with another who is on a phone or laptop. You could even have them in rooms with people using tablet PCs that are in one of two orientations: in the first condition, the screen is visible to the other person in the room; in the second condition, the screen is not visible to the other person in the room. Do the levels of anxiety or social exclusion (and the feelings of pain that come with it) increase when someone shares a room with a person using media technologies and they cannot see what the person is doing with those technologies?

If this turned out to be the case, then maybe we need to refine our media use etiquette rules. It's not necessarily a problem when people use digital devices around one another, and even if it is, it's probably unrealistic to expect people who live with one another to abstain from using digital devices around one another for long periods of time. Instead, perhaps we need to have more shared screen time. This is likely the idea behind technologies like Wii U or Chromecast: trying to give us the shared experience that television gave us while maintaining the interactivity and expanded options of the Internet. The only issue might be that we're left with an age old problem: who holds the remote? Who decides on the shape of the shared experience?

Maybe that's the trade-off. In order to avoid the social exclusion that comes with absent presence, we must relinquish some degree of privacy and control over our experiences.

Mobile media revealing our selves to ourselves

Mobile phones have many, many purposes: entertainment, art, communication, education. One of the more controversial applications of this technology is using it for monitoring. When certain people have the ability to covertly monitor others while not being monitored themselves, there is a power imbalance. It is possible for those doing the monitoring to judge and punish those who they catch doing something bad when, in fact, this is something that they do themselves but no one is able to observe them doing it. I'm not sure this actually happens all that often or will be as likely to happen in the future as most people believe, but for the time being, let's assume this concern about mobile media as monitoring device is a valid one.

But what about self-monitoring? The possibility of using mobile technology for self-monitoring and self-feedback has not yet been fully realized, and I think it may help people overcome two significant obstacles to behavior change.

The first obstacle is being aware of the patterns in your own behavior: the environmental cues that cause you to unconsciously respond in a way that isn't in your long-term interests, the moods and thoughts that precede worse moods and thoughts. It will be tricky to use mobile tech to reveal these patterns without being too obtrusive. I've tried out some experience sampling technology on my phone and its hard to even get it to work right, and when it does work right, it may just be too much of a nuisance to put up with. It feels like one more thing you have to do, like a diet, and almost all diets fail. But its conceivable that you could design a less intrusive way of tracking thoughts, feelings, and behavior throughout the day.

The second is one I've been thinking about a lot: people do not like to be told what is good for them by others. They may be a bit more accepting of such advice if its coming from a trusted expert (say, a medical doctor), but even then, it doesn't feel good to be told what to do. People will start to look for reasons to doubt the expertise of the advice giver. If we give people the tools to make connections for themselves and to use that new knowledge to alter their choice environment, there is no external force telling them what to do. If anything, they are telling their selves, their future selves, what to do.

We all do this already. We resolve to do things in the future that are in our best long-term interests but then fail to do so in the face of temptation or distraction. Mobile media, because it is with us at all times in all contexts, can be a tool with which we cope with temptation and distraction. Ideally, it will not proscribe particular ways of being, but will merely be a tool for individuals to closely observe and then structure their lives.

Modern existence necessitates being part of an increasingly complex (i.e., hard to understand) set of interactions with an increasing number of people. It is difficult to know why you feel the way you feel, or do the things you do. Designing an unobtrusive, secure self-monitoring application and using it in tandem with some choice-limiting technology is a way to exist in such a society. Potentially, mobile tech is a layer of technology between all those aforementioned applications - entertainment, art, communication, education - and the self who is equipped with the older "technologies" of the brain, eyes, ears, and nose.

Portable Technology: Size, Time, & Weight

My new computer - a netbook - has me thinking about how the physical characteristics of a device can influence how I feel about it and then what I do with it. I'm not talking about technological affordance - what the software/hardware allow me to do - but rather how the size and weight of the object influence my feelings about it.

My first working hypothesis: the smaller the device, the more "handy" it is, the more it will be suited for short bursts of use. Its hard to bust out anything bigger than my hand when I'm on the go, on a bus or walking around campus. Also, the use of these smaller devices for longer periods of time seems somehow fatiguing. Trying to block out all this other sensory information while concentrating on a smaller screen for a prolonged period of time is more difficult than concentrating on a larger laptop screen. For these reasons, smaller devices = shorter duration of use sessions.

Then I thought about whether weight has anything to do with use. I don't bring my laptop everywhere I bring my netbook b/c of the weight of my laptop. Its not so much that its literally too heavy for me to carry, but that it feels burdensome. I'm constantly reminded that its in my backpack. If I had a super light MacBook Air, I might feel better about bringing it more places b/c I wouldn't feel burdened by its presence.

So far, I'm finding that the netbook is making me more productive b/c I can "sneak up on myself" and start working on a project. This is inspired by a project I'm embarking on regarding study habits and affirmation (with Emily Falk and Elliot Berkman) related to my dissertation work on self control and virtue/vice media habits. Basically, if I think about going to a place (usually my office in my house), sitting down and doing work, I don't feel good about it, and I tend to avoid that place. But if I can take the "place" of work out of the equation, if I can get to work as impulsively as I can engage in time-wasting leisure activity, if work becomes as accessible as play, then I think I can get to work before I have a chance to dread it. At least that's the way it worked today.

Living while distracted

As I walked hurriedly down South University on my way to catch a bus, fishing my headphones out of the jacket pocket as I went, I passed an older man who was standing still. He was holding his hands behind his back, idly gazing in the window of an ice cream shop while students whizzed by him on their way to class. His idleness struck me - what might he be thinking about all the people around him. In particular, what might he be thinking of me or any of the many students fiddling with Ipods and phones. The answer is: probably nothing (I tend to assume people are thinking about me when they're not, so egocentric am I), but it made for a productive jumping-off point for some musings on media distraction.

Media is an exceptional tool for distraction, perhaps the best that has ever existed. It is always available. It presents significant variety in terms of songs we can listen to, people we can text, shows we can watch, profiles we can check out. We can use it to distract ourselves (actively choosing the content or people we access) or we can be distracted by it (being confronted by people or content we didn't seek out). Usually, its some combination of the two: going to a site that links to some unexpectedly interesting other site, texting one person and getting a text from another, etc. All of it serves to take our minds off whatever we happened to be thinking about or feeling before. It distracts us.

Distraction has a bad reputation. First, it is other people's doing. We wouldn't choose to be distracted, but more and more, we are confronted with a distracting environment, cluttered with advertisements and solicitations. It prevents us from working efficiently, prevents us from thinking deeply or for sustained periods of time about problems which helps us to solve those problems (either personal or societal). It reduces us to attention-depleted pleasure junkies, incapable of reflection.

OK, fine. I'm not necessarily doubting this curmudgeonly way of thinking about our modern world, a view I probably falsely ascribed to the stationary man staring into the window of Stucchi's ice cream. But I think there is pleasure in distraction (or at least the potential reduction of pain). Its not something that advertisers forced upon us.

Jonah Lehrer cites the research of Walter Mischel on self-control, finding that the key to preventing yourself from indulging in something you desperately want but should not have is distraction (this is a gross oversimplification of it, but whatevs). Children were presented with a short-term reward - a marshmallow - and told that if they held out, they could receive a larger long-term reward (two marshmallows). Some kids were able to hold out, others were not. Those who were able to hold out, on average, went on to be more successful in life, having fewer behavioral problems, higher SAT scores, and better jobs.

What helped those children delay gratification wasn't that they desired the reward any less, but that they were skilled in the art of “strategic allocation of attention.” In Lerher's words, "instead of getting obsessed with the marshmallow—the 'hot stimulus'—the patient children distracted themselves by covering their eyes, pretending to play hide-and-seek underneath the desk, or singing songs from 'Sesame Street.' Their desire wasn’t defeated—it was merely forgotten." It isn't just that the children were distracted and that they resisted temptation b/c of this, but that they understood how their minds worked. They engaged in meta-cognition, and were able to make themselves think of something else to help them hold out for a long-term reward.

In other words, self-imposed distraction was good. It helped prevent the children from indulging in immediate gratification, helped them hold out for long-term rewards which, as it turns out, is a big part of succeeding at life. Could we then think of media as an aid in this process, a super-effective tool for self-distraction? When we are tempted to indulge in some immediate gratification that will hinder our abilities to succeed in the long run, if we pop on our ipod or distract ourselves with an episode of Glee or text a friend, all other things being equal, does that help prevent us from indulging?

There are other effects of this kind of use of media, ones that may hinder our abilities to achieve our long-term goals (lowered attention span, expecting positive and novel stimuli at the push of a button at all times, etc). But it is interesting to consider this particular incentive for using media, as a way of distracting ourselves from things that we should be distracting ourselves from, things that it would be in our best interest to forget about for a bit. If you distract yourself from working through an issue you have with, say, your father or your job, this isn't good. You should take time to reflect on those problems, think about how to resolve them in a way that benefits all parties. Otherwise, they will fester and grow bigger. But if you distract yourself from your immediate desires for the proverbial marshmallow, this may just help you hold out for long-term rewards. No amount of reflection on that desire will help you. its just rumination, perseveration. It helps no one.

How, then, to tell the difference between the two, between escapist distraction and beneficial distraction?