Side Effects of Digital Technology

This essay discusses some of the side effects of the widespread adoption of digital technology, including social multitasking, the busy-all-the-time syndrome, SMS on mobile phones, speech recognition, mobile phone theft and security, personal data collection, and cyber attacks

Media devices in pre-school children: the recommendations of the Italian pediatric society

BACKGROUND: Young children are too often exposed to mobile devices (MD) and most of them had their own device. The adverse effects of a early and prolonged exposure to digital technology on pre-school children has been described by several studies. Aim of the study is to analyze the consequences of MD exposure in pre-school children. METHODS: We analyzed the documented effects of media exposure on children's mental and physical health. RESULTS: According to recent studies, MD may interfere with learning, children development, well being, sleep, sight, listening, caregiver-child relationship. DISCUSSION: Pediatricians should be aware of both the beneficial and side effects of MD and give advice to the families, according to children's age. CONCLUSION: In according to literature, the Italian Pediatric Society suggest that the media device exposure in childhood should be modulated by supervisors

Cancer support & advice (CANadvice) m-health system for home monitoring and symptom management of patients receiving oral chemotherapy treatment

Introduction: Recent development in digital technology has raised the interest of many researchers in implementing technology in the domain of m-health to provide better service to patients. Capecitabine, an oral chemotherapeutic agent causes several side effects which need to be monitored to avoid severe health consequences in patients. Methodology: A multidisciplinary team of pharmacists, clinicians and developers, was assembled for the design and development of CANadvice system, a mobile android application for patients and a web interface for health care professionals to assist patients in monitoring chemotherapy side effects at home. The application provides real time medical or lifestyle advice to patients and sends alerts to health care professionals for intervention. Results and Discussion: Two prototypes were designed, implemented and evaluated. Interviews were carried out with 5 health care professionals to investigate the system's effectiveness. The results indicated in this paper recommend using such tool for monitoring side effects. Real time advice and the link to health care professionals were very well accepted

Challenges and opportunities of democracy in the digital society: report from Dagstuhl Seminar 22361

Digital technologies amplify and change societal processes. So far, society and intellectuals have painted two extremes of viewing the effects of the digital transformation on democratic life. While the early 2000s to mid-2010s declared the "liberating" aspects of digital technology, the post-Brexit events and the 2016 US elections have emphasized the "dark side" of the digital revolution. Now, explicit effort is needed to go beyond tech saviorism or doom scenarios. To this end, we organized the Dagstuhl Seminar 22361 "Challenges and Opportunities of Democracy in the Digital Society" to discuss the future of digital democracy. This report presents a summary of the seminar, which took place in Dagstuhl in September 2022. The seminar attracted scientific scholars from various disciplines, including political science, computer science, jurisprudence, and communication science, as well as civic technology practitioners

El consumo tecnológico: su incremento en las principales ciudades de Colombia en los últimos dos años

En este ensayo, se analiza el incremento del consumo de la tecnologia en las principales ciudades de Colombia en los dos ultimos años. Como primera medida se busca entender el consumo tecnologico para luego profundizar en los aspectos que fomentan dicho consumo. Entre los aspectos mas destacados se encuentran el de la apertura economica de Colombia hacia el mundo y su relacion con el consumo de la tecnologia, los factores sociales y economicos que favorecen el consumo de tecnologias digitales, cuales son las tendencias de tecnologia digital en Colombia y por ultimo los efectos colaterales derivados de este incremento en el consumo tecnologico que busca identificar los aspectos mas importantes de este auge y el aprovechamiento en la economia colombiana.This paper analyzes the increase in consumption of technology in the main cities of Colombia in the last two years. At first place seeks to understand the technological consumption and then deepen into the aspects that encourage this technological consumption. Among the most outstanding aspects are the economic opening of Colombia to the world (globalization) and its relation to the consumption of technology, social and economic factors that promote the use of digital technologies, what are the trends of digital technology in Colombia and finally the side effects derived from this increase in technological consumption that seeks to identify the most important aspects of this boom and leveraging in the Colombian economy without forgetting the side effects to the earth

Avoiding the Dark Side of Digital Transformation in Teaching. An Institutional Reference Framework for eLearning in Higher Education

[EN]The purpose of this paper is to define a reference framework for introducing eLearning practices in mainly face‐to‐face higher education institutions. We suggest a suitable adoption and management of associated infrastructures and processes, in order to guarantee the ethical use of data in the related academic and learning analytics. A theoretical framework is proposed after years of practice and experience in the institutional government of IT processes related to learning technology. The digital transformation of teaching should imply the right technological decisions made by people and for people, in order to achieve a more inclusive, participative, and human university supported by technology. digital transformation is a social requirement of governments, companies, and institutions, and it should take into account the associated risks of the unethical use of technology, which leads to the dark side of transformation processes. eLearning approaches, especially with the influence of the COVID‐19 outbreaks, are increasing the need for digital mechanisms in universities. Further, there is a need for strategical support and reference models if we are to avoid these undesired effects

Digital Motivation, Digital Addiction and Responsibility Requirements - Keynote

Digital media can utilise game and behaviour change mechanisms to enrich engagement and user experience and increase their retention. Such mechanisms can also be used within the business software so that performance and quality of work are enhanced, e.g. gamification. While the positive side of these advances is recognised, there is little acknowledgement about their potential adverse effects on well-being. With recent research showing evidence of some digital media usage patterns being problematic and meeting the criteria of behavioural addiction, questions on the ethics, practices and responsibility of software companies are on the rise. Unlike alcohol, digital media can be designed to sense and react to problematic usage styles. This invited talk discusses why and how the software engineering community would need to take part in designing for conscious and informed technology usag

There's rue for you, and here's some for me

Here, we explore the notions of streams and streaming; processes such as datafication, new time space configurations and their effects on us and our bodies through tragedies of Hamlet and Narcissus. The stratification of time and experience contributed towards overcoding of self-identity and self-awareness, imagination, un/consciousness, perceptions and the expectations of individuals. Capitalist processes of double articulation from one side codified our senses through unification of time and experience. From the other side, a second articulation transformed time and space into a new flow of digital streaming through reterritorialization of time-space topologies by intensifying data streams. Streams are a “set of operations that regulate space-time through the cybernetic feedback loop.”. Loop and feedback loops are one of the most common exercises of power.We start by examining the important epistemic role tragedies can play in-forming our understanding of our entanglements with technology. We then discuss streams and their effects by revisiting the experiences of Ophelia and her body in the stream, its conscious and unconsciousness state, pain and her death. Second, we mobilize the tragedy of Narcissus and draw comparisons between biological and digital ontologies of streams and suggest techniques to ‘trouble the waters of’/ challenge existing digital streams

A multi-modal study into students’ timing and learning regulation: time is ticking

Purpose This empirical study aims to demonstrate how the combination of trace data derived from technology-enhanced learning environments and self-response survey data can contribute to the investigation of self-regulated learning processes. Design/methodology/approach Using a showcase based on 1,027 students’ learning in a blended introductory quantitative course, the authors analysed the learning regulation and especially the timing of learning by trace data. Next, the authors connected these learning patterns with self-reports based on multiple contemporary social-cognitive theories. Findings The authors found that several behavioural facets of maladaptive learning orientations, such as lack of regulation, self-sabotage or disengagement negatively impacted the amount of practising, as well as timely practising. On the adaptive side of learning dispositions, the picture was less clear. Where some adaptive dispositions, such as the willingness to invest efforts in learning and self-perceived planning skills, positively impacted learning regulation and timing of learning, other dispositions such as valuing school or academic buoyancy lacked the expected positive effects. Research limitations/implications Due to the blended design, there is a strong asymmetry between what one can observe on learning in both modes. Practical implications This study demonstrates that in a blended setup, one needs to distinguish the grand effect on learning from the partial effect on learning in the digital mode: the most adaptive students might be less dependent for their learning on the use of the digital learning mode. Originality/value The paper presents an application of embodied motivation in the context of blended learning