Dual Spacization of Cultures: Problematization of Cyberspace and Cultural Matters

This paper examines the problematization of cultural issues related to the dual spacization of life. The emergence of the second space of life over the first place of life combining local and translocal, national and transnational capacities and challenges. We discuss the capacities and opportunities occurring through the instant communication industry which made the spontaneous connection between absence and presence possible which overcome the domination of place and distance. We will also elaborate on the challenges and threats facing cultures because of access to other cultures, subcultures and individuals around the world without having enough time for nurturing the relationship between inner cultures and outer cultures as well as facing many abnormalities, distancing from genuine culture and natural communications

Investigation and identification of social harms in the new city of Sahand, Tabriz (With emphasis on Mehr housing)

Purpose: With the increase of Iran's urban population, large cities faced many problems and new cities were located and built to attract population overflow in the area of these cities. The new city of Sahand was built to reduce the demographic, economic, social and physical problems of the metropolis of Tabriz in the sphere of influence of this city. With the creation of Mehr housing in phases 2, 3 and 4 of this city, a new issue was raised. This article seeks to examine and identify the social issues and problems of this city, prioritize them and identify solutions to reduce the impact. Methodology: The research method used in this research is applied and survey. Findings: Results show that the most important problems are: drug use, class differences, cultural poverty, distrust of neighbors, distrust of city officials, economic poverty, presence Thugs, the presence of badly supervised women, unusual relationships between girls and boys, harassment of women, quarrels and conflicts, running away from home, begging, unconventional relationships between married men and women, child abuse and white marriage, relationships Poor neighborhood, general dissatisfaction with living conditions, feeling of insecurity in parks and gardens, inadequate lighting and lighting of roads, flooded roads, traffic jams and the problem of parking cars, unsuitable sidewalks, lack of medical centers, lack of playgrounds for children and adolescents, Lack of green space, inadequate garbage collection system, low quality of housing, lack of recreational space for citizens, etc., which are the most important factors in the occurrence and emergence of social harms in this city. Originality/Value: In this paper, investigation and identification of social harms in the new city of Sahand, Tabriz (With emphasis on Mehr housing) is done

Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out?:A Typology of Psychedelic Microdosing as Technologies of the Self

Psychedelic microdosing, or taking small doses of psychedelic substances that do not induce intoxication or altered states but rather subtle outcomes such as increased focus, has quickly become a mass media phenomenon. Many claim microdosing has become the new secret to enhancement in work contexts. Drawing from literature on psychedelic microdosing, technologies of the self, self-identity and the sociology of work and leisure, this study understands microdosing as a technology individuals introduce into their lives to modify themselves for various purposes. We explore the ways in which the 1960s iconic psychedelic drugs, that once offered turning on, tuning in and dropping out, are now finding new uses across different contexts. Taking a cultural-sociological perspective, we examine how individuals use microdoses of classic psychedelic drugs and how they make sense of microdosing in their daily lives. Based on our findings, we identify three different uses of psychedelic microdosing: (1) as technology of self-esteem and control at work, (2) as a self-help technology, and (3) as a technology of ‘slow living’.status: Published onlin

Fully recharged evenings? The effect of evening cyber leisure on next-day vitality and performance through sleep quantity and quality, bedtime procrastination, and psychological detachment, and the moderating role of mindfulness

Aligning with the recovery perspective, we propose a dual-path model to illustrate the effects of employees' evening cyber leisure on next-day work outcomes, namely, psychological vitality and performance. We argue that evening cyber leisure has contradicting effects on next-day performance and vitality through its effects on bedtime procrastination and psychological detachment, and in turn, sleep quantity and sleep quality. We also propose that trait mindfulness acts as an important boundary condition of the indirect effects of evening cyber leisure. We used an experience sampling methodology to collect 3 surveys per day for 10 days from 155 R&D employees of a biotech company. Our findings suggest that cyber leisure has a negative indirect effect on sleep quantity and sleep quality via bedtime procrastination, and a positive indirect effect on sleep quantity and sleep quality via evening psychological detachment. Additionally, sleep quantity was positively associated with performance, and sleep quality was positively associated with psychological vitality. Lastly, as trait mindfulness increased, the negative impact of cyber leisure on bedtime procrastination was mitigated, and the positive impact of cyber leisure on psychological detachment was enhanced. Theoretical and practical implications specific to the use of cyber devices for workplace recovery are discussed

Managing to play: the everday lives of adult videogame consumers.

Against a backdrop of videogame producers keen to promote themselves as a 'serious' adult entertainment industry, and persistent media reports on the 'dangers' of videogame play, this research examines the lived experiences of adult videogame players. I start with aconsideration of the nature of play and of consumption in order to assess the ways in whichour consumer society may be seen as becoming more playful, or experiential. I also consider the development of key discourses on videogame use and in particular the problematic waysin which we understand real, virtual and digital spaces. These theoretical contexts provide a background against which I consider a phenomenology of adult videogame consumption. Drawing from extended discussions with 24 adult videogame players I review: the biographical and domestic contexts in which adults play videogames; the various practices that they develop relating to buying, owning and using videogames, and; the nature of experiences produced through play. Adults may have started playing videogames as a result of an educational agenda, or peer pressure whilst as school, but may have continued playing intermittently into adulthood and now find that friends, and especially family influence how and what they play. As a result they have developed a variety of practices that I describe in detail including managing the amount of time and money spent on games and negotiating spaces to play. Within these contexts players aim for 'ideal' experiences of skill and achievement, of escape though the management of their imagination, and of social interaction with family and friends. However these largely positive experiences need to be carefully managed against a risk that their behaviour may be seen as childish, and against the potential for play to cause disruption to work or domestic life. Following these detailed first-person descriptions I consider the 'discourses in practice' during the use of videogames. I note the persistent framing of videogame play as frivolous, but also the way in which games are used to manage everyday life by providing a space that is an escape from routines of work and family life and in particular a space in which the imagination may be actualised. In doing so I also consider the transformatory potential of videogames, concluding that although they may be seen to serve a conservative role, and may be critiqued as part of an over-experienced, yet'futile' life, their ability to aid the management of everyday life is significant

On the importance of netnographic research in understanding young people’s virtual/real lives

This era of ubiquitous and unprecedented technological advancement has captured the attention of scholars in the humanities, encouraging them to investigate the nature of computing and the prolific use of technology in almost all aspects of human activity. Aiming to redefine humanity in the digital age, many scholars have brought about new theorisations that seek to answer new questions. By placing emphasis on this, the present essay reflects on new directions in the humanities that seek to decipher these technology-related changes. More particularly, my focus is to consider how Robert Kozinets’ netnography, as an emerging research method in digital anthropology, can help educators, parents, and students to understand the transformations that are taking place in non-digital situations. I inquire, in this article, about the role netnographers could play in assisting teachers and parents to bridge the gap between digital natives and digital immigrants by examining virtualised behaviour.peer-reviewe

No signal here: self-development and optimal experience from digital-free tourism

The present research aims to establish a conceptual understanding of the benefits tourists may gain from digital-free tourism. The concept of digital-free tourism was proposed to represent situations characterised by the absence of or severely limited access to information and communication technology. There has been a contemporary concern over the sustained use of the internet and digital technologies, in terms of the side-effects on individuals' physical, psychological and social conditions and the possible deterioration of tourist experience. Therefore, the assumption of the potential of reduced technology use in tourism to improve tourist well-being has been claimed. Four interrelated studies were conducted to investigate the topic both as a social phenomenon and a niche tourism market. The rewarding outcomes of digital-free tourism were examined by addressing three specific questions. The first research question "is digital-free tourism rising in prominence?" was answered by the first study – media representation of digital-free tourism: a critical discourse analysis included in Chapter 2 of this thesis. Archival data, that is online media documents focusing on the broad topic of digital detoxing on holiday, was analysed at three levels, including linguistic characteristics, temporal diachronic interpretation and socio-cultural explanation. Media discourses around digital-free tourism were found to be evolving. Specifically, vacations and tourism are discoursed as ideal situations for managing technology use behaviours. The value of digital-free tourism over time has moved from relieving stress to life flourishing. Multiple digital-free tourism providers now offer diverse experiences to a growing broad market. The second research question "what are the positive experiences and impacts of digital-free tourism?" was answered by conducting the second study – exploration of benefits from digital-free tourism: a grounded theory approach in Chapter 3. Sixty five carefully selected key informants with expert knowledge or personal experience of digital-free tourism were asked to report their experience, observations and perspectives about reduced technology use on holiday. Based on the patterns in the data, a theoretical model was developed to display the positive changes of tourists' psychological, behavioural and life conditions through the process of digital-free tourism. The third research question "in what ways does digital-free vacation experience contribute to people's well-being?" was addressed in two further in-depth studies. These studies were developed in Chapters 4 and 5. The third study in Chapter 4 - self-development in digital-free tourism: building character strengths through coping with challenging investigated the correlations between digital-free tourism and the development of character strengths and virtues which build personal well-being. Key-informants' statements obtained in the previous study were re-coded by employing a catalogue of twenty four character strengths in positive psychology as a priori coding scheme. In the results, twenty three character strengths were found to be related to digital-free tourism. They were perceived to be the strengths that were utilised to cope with issues faced in the digital-free contexts. A tiered model was built to outline the core, secondary and peripheral strengths in digital-free tourism. The fourth study in Chapter 5 - optimal experience: the role of reduced smartphone use in increasing perception of restorative environments and producing flow attempted to develop measures for the levels of perceived restorative quality of digital-free tourism environments and the flow tourists experienced when technology use was reduced; as well as to examine the nexus among critical variables by testing a Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Model (PLS-SEM). The hypothesised positive correlation between restorative environment and flow was confirmed. Smartphone dependence was found to be effective in reducing the level of flow and moderating the relationship between restorative environment and flow. A VI trend of high dependence on smartphone weakening tourists' ability to perceive restorative digital-free environment was also revealed by this empirical study. Consequently, the value and significance of positive changes of tourists' psychological, social, behavioural and life conditions arising from disconnection are suggested in these findings about the understudied concept of digital-free tourism. Such knowledge can make important theoretical contributions to the understanding of the intricate relationship between technology and tourism, the rewarding outcomes of vacation time involving reduced technology engagement, and the well-being from positive tourist experience. Digital-free tourism can provide individuals opportunities to experience a new way of being in this digital era, reflect on and regulate the technology use behaviours of themselves and their families, as well as increase well-being through selecting unplugging vacations. The present research also introduced digital-free tourism as a new style of tourism product and service that can be an effective strategy for remote regions to develop innovative forms of tourism

A SOCIOLOGICAL EXAMINATION OF JUVENILE FRUIT MACHINE GAMBLING IN A SEASIDE TOWN

This thesis has two main aims. The first is to develop a standard measure of addiction to gambling in children which could be used to estimate the extent of dependency among children aged 11 to 16 years. The second focusses upon patterns of usage and seeks to understand the various meanings which children attach to fruit machine gambling in an arcade. The first aim has been achieved by adapting a measure used to diagnose addiction to gambling in adults for use with children. The resulting DSM-IV-J criteria were tested using a questionnaire survey on a sample of 467 schoolchildren aged between 11 and 16 years. Those children who were defined as "probable pathological" gamblers by the DSM-IV-J index were significantly more likely to be involved in behaviours hitherto associated with dependency, than were the control group. DSMIV- J appears to be a major advance in the discrimination of pathological gambling in children. This study disaffirms the popular, generic image of the typical young fruit machine "addict" as being a lone, adolescent male. "Probable pathological" gamblers were equally male or female, spread across the age range of eleven to sixteen years, and came from a range of social class and religious backgrounds. However, "probable pathological" gamblers were more likely than "social" gamblers to have started playing fruit machines when they were very young (at the age of eight years or younger) and to have parents who gambled. The second aim has been investigated by ethnographic fieldwork and is presented in the form of a typology. Arcade Kings and their Apprentices, Machine Beaters, Escape Artists, Action Seekers and Renta- Spacers comprise a classification which includes "addicts" as well as "social gamblers". The typology reveals the multi-dimensional nature of fruit machine gambling as a leisure pursuit. It thus provides a theoretical contribution to the sociology of gambling as well as an "ethnographic road map" for researchers and counsellors in the field

Akratic Homo Economicus: Does the Neoclassical Economic Theory Rational Agent Assumption Accurately Depict Human Nature?

Neoclassical economic theory has long been scrutinized for its failure to be congruent with reality, often lacking generality and tractability due to, what many critics argue to be, unrealistic assumptions. One of the theory\u27s core suppositions is a representative rational agent or homo economicus, whose self-interest and optimal choices, which are in state of equilibrium and efficiency are rooted in utility maximization of his well-being. Even though neoclassical economics claims to accurately depict human nature, from its very inception it has failed to incorporate human psychology and sociology into its foundations. As the behavioral and biological research became more robust in the 20th and 21st centuries, it began to provide evidence against some of theory\u27s core questionable and often unsubstantiated claims. The paper intends to demonstrate a flaw in the human rationality assumption of the standard economic theory by exploring the phenomenon of addiction as one of the akratic behaviors that is often exhibited by human beings in the real world. This paper will focus on providing a brief overview and juxtaposition the Rational Choice and Rational Addiction models against assumptions and conclusions of the picoeconomic approach to explore the concepts of rational versus akratic behaviors in an attempt to evaluate whether these theories are capable of systematically explaining addictive tendencies of an economic man

5th International Conference on Time Perspective

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