Futures Studies in the Interactive Society

This book consists of papers which were prepared within the framework of the research project (No. T 048539) entitled Futures Studies in the Interactive Society (project leader: Éva Hideg) and funded by the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund (OTKA) between 2005 and 2009. Some discuss the theoretical and methodological questions of futures studies and foresight; others present new approaches to or procedures of certain questions which are very important and topical from the perspective of forecast and foresight practice. Each study was conducted in pursuit of improvement in futures fields

Semantic discovery and reuse of business process patterns

Patterns currently play an important role in modern information systems (IS) development and their use has mainly been restricted to the design and implementation phases of the development lifecycle. Given the increasing significance of business modelling in IS development, patterns have the potential of providing a viable solution for promoting reusability of recurrent generalized models in the very early stages of development. As a statement of research-in-progress this paper focuses on business process patterns and proposes an initial methodological framework for the discovery and reuse of business process patterns within the IS development lifecycle. The framework borrows ideas from the domain engineering literature and proposes the use of semantics to drive both the discovery of patterns as well as their reuse

The Impact of the Internet on the Public Sphere and on the Culture Industry. A study of blogs, social news sites and discussion forums

This thesis analyses how certain services of online communication (blogs, discussion forums, social news and bookmarking sites) contribute to the public sphere and to the culture industry. The concept of public sphere is derived from Jürgen Habermas' idea that political power can only be legitimate if it is applied in accordance with the best, common interests of the society – but these interests can only be crystallized in discursive debates between members of the society. However, contemporary national public spheres are said to be distorted and detached from real interests of citizens. The internet, through offering the possibility of democratic and reflexive communication, holds the potential of improving the state of public spheres. The concept of culture industry holds that the capitalization of the production of cultural products (i.e. works of art) rids societies of authoritative art, the one channel through which real individual freedom can be established. “Culture industry” is instrumental, through the promotion of consumption, to the capitalist domination of a few over masses. This, in turn, affects the general state of the public spheres. Once again, the internet has the potential to democratize this over-encompassing culture industry, through increasing cultural diversity via its several new channels of information and distribution. The analysis of blogs, discussion forums and social bookmarking and news sites confirms the democratic potential inherent in these services, but it also points out certain problems that hinder the actualization of this potential. It is established that the use of the generalizing category of “blogs” is misleading, because of the fake underlying dichotomy of “blogs vs traditional media.” The large, fragmented and asymmetrically interlinked (small, influential core and large, extremely fragmented periphery) totality of blogs is found to be contributive to the public sphere mostly as an alternative and very fast channel of information dissemination. The role of discussion forums is found to be ambiguous, certain forums being absolutely irrelevant, while others establishing powerful advocacy media and global issue publics. Social news sites are found to be potentially most constructive from the point of view of the public sphere, because they tend to effectively promote reasoned argumentation.fi=Opinnäytetyö kokotekstinä PDF-muodossa.|en=Thesis fulltext in PDF format.|sv=Lärdomsprov tillgängligt som fulltext i PDF-format

Understanding the Effect of Social Media Overload on Academic Performance: A Stressor-Strain-Outcome Perspective

Social media has deeply penetrated into university students’ daily lives, inducing excessive usage that can result in social media overload. However, only few studies have explored the adverse consequences of social media use from a pedagogical perspective. This paper aims to investigate the effects of overload on students’ academic performance and the underlying mechanism. Based on the stressor-strain-outcome model, we propose that information, communication, and social overloads influence technostress and exhaustion of students, which in turn impair their academic performance. Results from a study of 249 Chinese social media users in universities reveal that all three types of overload enhance technostress, but only information overload significantly affect exhaustion. Both technostress and exhaustion have negative effects on academic performance. This study enriches social media literature by identifying a more comprehensive classification of social media-related overload among university students and investigating the exact mechanism of excessive social media use in educational environment

Factors mediating social media-induced fear of missing out (FoMO) and social media fatigue: A comparative study among Instagram and Snapchat users

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Temporal ambivalences in smartphone use: Conflicting flows, conflicting responsibilities

This article explores implications of the central position of the smartphone in an age of constant connectivity. Based on a qualitative study of 50 informants, we ask how users experience and handle temporal ambivalences in everyday smartphone use, drawing on the concepts flow and responsibilization to conceptualize central dimensions of such ambivalences. The notion of conflicting flows illuminates how brief checking cycles expand at the expense of other activities, resulting in a temporal conflict experienced by users. Responsibilization points to how users take individual responsibility for managing such conflicting flows, and to how this practice is difficult and conflict-ridden. We conclude that while individual time management is often framed as the solution to temporal conflicts, such attempts at regulating smartphone use appear inadequate. Our conceptualization of temporal ambivalence offers a more nuanced understanding of why this is the case.publishedVersio

Parenting in the 21st Century

In this Special Issue, we present a collection of articles that cover the unique opportunities and challenges of parenting in the 21st century. We have identified three themes across the articles: managing stress; support for effective parenting; and emphasis on fostering competence for an uncertain future. First, although the studies did not use data to test for differences between cohorts of parents, the results suggested that stress is a normal state for parents today, and especially for certain groups of parents. Second, despite high stress among parents, the articles point at some important support systems for parents in the 21st century. For example, although technology can be a stressor, it can also be a useful tool to enhance the parent-child relationship for parents of adolescents or young adults. Finally, in the third theme, we saw an emphasis on promoting a mix of competencies emphasizing both autonomy and relatedness in children and speculate that parents see these competences as tools to help the child to deal with an uncertain future.Results from this Special Issue illustrate the impact of societal changes on parenting. The findings can be used to develop programs and policies to provide support to diverse parents in handling today’s stressors, ranging from technology to racism to excessive pressures for parental “success”. They also point to important research gaps in understanding the task of parenting in the 21st century