Web accessibility and mental disorders

Background: Mental disorders are a significant public health issue due to the restrictions they place on participation in all areas of life and the resulting disruption to the families and societies of those affected. People with these disorders often use the Web as an informational resource, platform for convenient self-directed treatment and a means for many other kinds of support. However, some features of the Web can potentially erect barriers for this group that limit their access to these benefits, and there is a lack of research looking into this eventuality. Therefore, it is important to identify gaps in knowledge about “what” barriers exist and “how” they could be addressed so that this knowledge can inform Web professionals who aim to ensure the Web is inclusive to this population. Objective: The objective of this work was to identify the barriers people with mental disorders, especially those with depression and anxiety, experience when using the Web and the facilitation measures used to address such barriers. Methods: This work involved three studies. First, (1) a systematic review of studies that have considered the difficulties people with mental disorders experience when using digital technologies. A synthesis was performed by categorizing data according to the 4 foundational principles of Web accessibility as proposed by the World Wide Web Consortium. Facilitation measures recommended by studies were later summarized into a set of minimal recommendations. This work also relied data triangulation using (2) face-to-face semistructured interview study with participants affected by depression and anxiety and a comparison group, as well as (3) a persona-based expert online survey study with mental health practitioners. Framework analysis was used for study 2 and study 3. Results: A total of 16 publications were included in study 1’s review, comprising 13 studies and 3 international guidelines. Findings suggest that people with mental disorders experience barriers that limit how they perceive, understand, and operate websites. Identified facilitation measures target these barriers in addition to ensuring that Web content can be reliably interpreted by a wide range of user applications. In study 2, 167 difficulties were identified from the experiences of participants in the depression and anxiety group were discussed within the context of 81 Web activities, services, and features. Sixteen difficulties identified from the experiences of participants in the comparison group were discussed within the context of 11 Web activities, services, and features. In study 3, researchers identified 3 themes and 10 subthemes that described the likely difficulties people with depression and anxiety might experience online as reported by mental health practitioners. Conclusions: People with mental disorders encounter barriers on the Web, and attempts have been made to remove or reduce these barriers. This investigation has contributed to a fuller understanding of these difficulties and provides innovative guidance on how to remove and reduce them for people with depression and anxiety when using the Web. More rigorous research is still needed to be exhaustive and to have a larger impact on improving the Web for people with mental disorders

Wearable technology industry: challenges and opportunties in the European market

Wearable technology is a new industry which is develop. Smartwatches, activity trackers are done explains of these devices. In this new field, fashion and technology work together to create successful products with limitless function

Composing Online: A Case Study of Embodiment, Digitality, and YouTube

This study examines YouTube channel, ContraPoints, by trans woman Natalie Wynn. It begins with close readings and analyses of an example video and body of comments from Wynn’s oeuvre that draw conclusions about how trans embodiment intersects with online, multimodal composing. The study finds that, in her video “Beauty,” Wynn’s bodily presentation and rhetorical attitudes towards dominant norms of gender and sexuality constantly shift. Furthermore, the study uncovers evidence that commenter attitudes about gender and sexuality in the video “Autogynephilia” likewise shift as a result of encounters with the video and with other commenters. Next, the study reads the YouTube video page as an assemblage composed of smaller assemblages, or modules. I discover that each of the modules relate to one another in such a way as to endow the YouTube video page assemblage with the capacities to enter social justice movements, yet the specific properties of the modules on ContraPoints video pages fail to provide the sufficient conditions to exercise this capacity. Nevertheless, the study concludes that ContraPoints video page assemblages do have the capacity to generate interpersonal, communal reflections on complex issues around gender and sexuality, reflections that may give rise to changing beliefs. These belief changes are necessary for any future community-building that may enable social justice movements aimed at expanding rights around gender and sexuality. This case study, then, offers one answer among infinite possible answers to Phil Bratta and Scott Sundvall’s question of how composers with diverse embodiments address systems of domination using digital technology. The study also suggests that assemblage theory represents a productive framework for interpreting online, multimodal compositions that incorporate large bodies of information, or big-data assemblages

Pocket Monsters And Pirate Treasure: Fantasy And Social Platforms In The 21st Century

POCKET MONSTERS AND PIRATE TREASURE: FANTASY AND SOCIAL PLATFORMS IN THE 21ST CENTURY is an anthropology project examining media, fantasy, ideology, and social groups in order to build a better foundation for the ways in which economic and social changes influence social networking, popular media, and values by using the anime-manga subculture as an example. The thesis draws from three major theorists: Thomas LaMarre, Anne Allison, and Ian Condry as well as major anthropological theorists such as Pierre Bourdieu. As an ethnography, the project was split into two sections: one consisting of interviews with eight anime-manga subculture participants drawn primarily from the University of Mississippi Anime Club, and the second constructed from participant observation in a variety of activities important for constructing the community, such as conventions and group watching of animated series. I conclude that through the synthesis of different strains of contemporary ideas—along with my own contribution of theory in the form of a redefinition of Levi-Strauss’s concept of bricolage—a better way of understanding both resistance in the consumption of popular media and the formation of group cultures in social networks. Larger conclusions on this regard are posed as ongoing studies and challenges to the field of media studies and anthropology, and as targets of further research

A Framework for Digital Emotions

As new media become more ubiquitous, our emotional experiences in digital space are increasing exponentially as well. While there is much talk of “affective” computing and “affective” new media art, a disconnect exists between networked emotions and the popular media that they inhabit. This research presents a theoretical framework for assessing “digital emotions”—a term that describes the feedback process between digital technologies and the body with respect to short, networked inscriptions of emotion and the (re)experience of those inscriptions within the body and through digital space. Digital emotions display five basic characteristics that can be applied to a variety of media environments: (1) They describe a process of feedback that link short, emotive inscriptions in digital environments to users and their (re)experiences of those inscriptions; (2) This feedback process includes, but is not limited to, the inscriber, the medium, and the receiver and the emotive experience fuels the initial connectivity and any further connectivity; (3) The emotional value varies depending on the media, the community of users, and the aesthetic experience of the digital emotion; (4) Digital emotions influence our emotional repertoire by normalizing our paradigm scenarios; and (5) They are highly malleable based on changes in technologies and their ability to both expand and contract emotional experiences in real time. The core characteristics of digital emotions are applied to three broad and overlapping categories: technology, community, and aesthetic experience. Each of these aspects of digital emotions work together, yet they exist along the massive spectrum of our online, emotional experiences—from our casual click of the “like” button to digital community artworks. Applied to digital spaces along this spectrum, digital emotions illuminate the feedback process that occurs between the media, the network, and the environment. The framework ultimately suggests that the process of digital emotions explicates emotions experiences that could only occur in digital space and are therefore unique to digital culture

Actor & Avatar: A Scientific and Artistic Catalog

What kind of relationship do we have with artificial beings (avatars, puppets, robots, etc.)? What does it mean to mirror ourselves in them, to perform them or to play trial identity games with them? Actor & Avatar addresses these questions from artistic and scholarly angles. Contributions on the making of "technical others" and philosophical reflections on artificial alterity are flanked by neuroscientific studies on different ways of perceiving living persons and artificial counterparts. The contributors have achieved a successful artistic-scientific collaboration with extensive visual material