Social Role Transitions and Technology: Societal Change and Coping in Online Communities

Technological and societal changes unfold in relation to one another. Many events like becoming a parent, getting divorced, or getting a medical diagnosis dictate a change in one’s social role. Social role transition can have negative consequences including stress, stigmatization, and disempowerment. Social interactions, especially communicating with allies and those facing similar conditions, can alleviate the psychological burden of these challenges. The goal of this dissertation is to understand how people use technology to cope with social role change, and how the features of different online communities provide a range of ways to make sense of their social role transition, find support, and advocate for change. In the first study (Chapter 3), I qualitatively analyze interviews with fathers and a sam- ple of father blogs to show how fathers use do-it-yourself (DIY) language on blogs and in their online interactions as a means of redefining fatherhood. Fathers use the DIY concept to build their own father-centric online communities in order to manage some of the disad- vantages associated with the lack of parenting online communities that cater to them. This new framing of fatherhood allows fathers to make sense of their new role as parents, and at the same time, to redefine the social norms around fatherhood. In Chapter 4, I study how parents use social media sites at scale using natural language processing. The focus of the analysis is on Reddit, a social media site that allows users to comment under pseudonyms. I find that parents use pseudonymous social media sites to discuss topics that might otherwise be considered too sensitive to discuss on real-name social media sites such as Facebook (e.g., breastfeeding and sleep training). This study also outlines similarities and differences in discussion topics among mothers and father on Reddit (e.g., mothers discussing breastfeeding and fathers discussing divorce and custody). Finally, in Chapter 5, I use computational and qualitative methods to study how anony- mous accounts on Reddit (throwaway accounts) provide parents with varying levels of anonymity as they cope with social role changes by sharing potentially stigmatizing infor- mation (e.g., postpartum depression) or advocating for stigmatized identities (e.g., divorced fathers). Finally, based on my findings, I present design recommendations that could pro- mote better social support on platforms beyond Reddit.PHDInformationUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/162933/1/tawfiqam_1.pd

Alternative Group Technologies and Their Influence on Group Technology Acceptance

There is a long history of study to understand why work groups do or do not adopt new collaboration technologies. However, research has focused on only one technology. The underlying assumption is that work groups can adopt or not adopt that one technology based on that technology alone. In making this assumption, many researchers have failed to realize the importance of alternative technologies in the adoption process or the fact that groups can adopt more than one technology. To address this issue, we examined an attempt by a scientific research organization to have its work groups adopt a particular group-collaboration technology. Although the target technology was more than appropriate for the task and the organization provided all the resources needed for work groups to adopt the technology, i largely failed. This was in large part because of two alternative collaboration technologies that acted as substitutes.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/144537/1/AJIS_7000100087_20180619_1.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/144537/4/Ammari et al. 2018.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/144537/6/Ammari et al. 2018 (Published).pdfDescription of Ammari et al. 2018.pdf : Forthcoming versionDescription of Ammari et al. 2018 (Published).pdf : Final Versio

A Capabilities View of Accessibility in Policy and Practice in Jordan and Peru

We explore the recent evolution of accessibility-related policy in Jordan and Peru, and specifically consider issues around assistive technology access for people with severe vision impairments. We find differences in capacity development and institutions in the two countries over time and how it impacts the ways in which recent policy consultations have taken place, and propose a capabilities framework as a means to examine and contextualize these differences. Narratives of assistive technology use by people in both countries emphasize ways in which the capabilities approach is also a valuable tool in understanding aspirations and how social interactions evolve with access to assistive technology. We argue that the findings from Peru and Jordan, given the diversity of policy environments, infrastructure, and socio-economic attitudes towards people with disabilities, give us an important lens towards understanding the evolution of disability rights and policies in various low and middle-income countries around the world

Secure national electronic voting system: Pilot implementation

Abstract Electronic voting provides accuracy and efficiency to the electoral processes. World democracies would benefit from a secure e-voting system not only to improve voter participation and trust but also to prevent electoral fraud. However, current e-voting systems are complex and have security weaknesses. In this paper, we describe a secure e-voting system for national and local elections. This system satisfies the important requirements of an e-voting system through state-of-the-art technologies and secure processes. The system relies on homomorphic cryptography, zero-knowledge proofs, biometrics, smartcards, open source software, and secure computers for securely and efficiently implementing the system processes over the various stages of electoral process. Furthermore, we describe the pilot implementations of this system that test the main technologies and processes used. We explain how the used technologies and processes achieve the system requirement. In conclusion, we recommend adopting this system for its security, flexibility, economic, and scalability features

Managing Children's Online Identities: How Parents Decide what to Disclose about their Children Online

ABSTRACT While extensive research has investigated the risks of children sharing their personal information online, little work has investigated the implications of parents sharing personal information about their children online. Drawing on 102 interviews with parents, we investigate how parents decide what to disclose about their children on social network sites (SNSs). We find that mothers take on the responsibility of sharing content about their children more than fathers do. Fathers are more restrictive about sharing to broad and professional audiences and are concerned about sharing content that could be perceived as sexually suggestive. Both mothers and fathers work to leverage affordances of SNSs to limit oversharing. Building on prior work, we introduce the concept of parental disclosure management, which describes how parents decide what to share about their children online. We also describe an emerging third shift of work that highlights the additional work parents take on to manage children's identities online. We conclude with theoretical and practical implications for designing SNSs to better support family life online

A qualitative analysis of stay-at-home parents’ spanking tweets

Objective This qualitative study used Twitter to examine stay-at-home parents’ publicly available postings to Twitter about discipline and spanking. Many adults still support the use of spanking despite a substantial body of evidence demonstrating that spanking is linked to a range of negative child outcomes. Little is currently known about how parents think about spanking as a disciplinary practice and how parents express these beliefs online. Method Five million publicly available tweets were collected from self-identified stay-at-home parents. Tweets were screened for discipline and spanking content. A qualitative analysis was conducted on the final set of tweets (N= 648). Results Stay-at-home parents were most likely to tweet about information related to discipline and spanking compared to tweets that made up other global themes (e.g., discipline tips). Parents most commonly posted tweets that reflected their anti-spanking beliefs compared to tweets that made up other subthemes (e.g., pro-spanking). Tweets in support of spanking emerged as well, with fathers being more likely than mothers to tweet about pro-spanking beliefs and desires. However, mothers were more likely than fathers to tweet about pro-spanking behaviors. Conclusion Our results provide evidence that stay-at-home parents turn to Twitter to obtain disciplinary information and disclose their anti-spanking and pro-spanking beliefs. Anti-spanking tweets potentially reflect changing social norms and suggest that some stay-at-home parents on Twitter may be engaging in selective self-presentation. Thus, Twitter may be one avenue to use for interventions to set social norms that aim to reduce parental corporal punishment.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/163749/1/2020-Lee-Aqualitativeanalysisofstayathome.pdfDescription of 2020-Lee-Aqualitativeanalysisofstayathome.pdf : Main articl

Securing Financial XML Transactions Using Intelligent Fuzzy Classification Techniques

The eXtensible Markup Language (XML) has been widely adopted in many financial institutions in their daily transactions; this adoption was due to the flexible nature of XML providing a common syntax for systems messaging in general and in financial messaging in specific. Excessive use of XML in financial transactions messaging created an aligned interest in security protocols integrated into XML solutions in order to protect exchanged XML messages in an efficient yet powerful mechanism. However, financial institutions (i.e. banks) perform large volume of transactions on daily basis which require securing XML messages on large scale. Securing large volume of messages will result performance and resource issues. Therefore, an approach is needed to secure specified portions of an XML document, syntax and processing rules for representing secured parts. In this research we have developed a smart approach for securing financial XML transactions using effective and intelligent fuzzy classification techniques. Our approach defines the process of classifying XML content using a set of fuzzy variables. Upon fuzzy classification phase, a unique value is assigned to a defined attribute named "Importance Level". Assigned value indicates the data sensitivity for each XML tag. This thesis also defines the process of securing classified financial XML message content by performing element-wise XML encryption on selected parts defined in fuzzy classification phase. Element-wise encryption is performed using symmetric encryption using AES algorithm with different key sizes. Key size of 128-bit is being used on tags classified with "Medium" importance level; a key size of 256-bit is being used on tags classified with "High" importance level. An implementation has been performed on a real life environment using online banking system in Jordan Ahli Bank one of the leading banks in Jordan to demonstrate its flexibility, feasibility, and efficiency. Our experimental results of the system verified tangible enhancements in encryption efficiency, processing time reduction, and resulting XML message sizes. Finally, our proposed system was designed, developed, and evaluated using a live data extracted from an internet banking service in one of the leading banks in Jordan. The results obtained from our experiments are promising, showing that our model can provide an effective yet resilient support for financial systems to secure exchanged financial XML messages

Understanding and Supporting Fathers and Fatherhood on Social Media Sites

ABSTRACT Fathers are taking on more childcare and household responsibilities than they used to and many non-profit and government organizations have pushed for changes in policies to support fathers. Despite this effort, little research has explored how fathers go online related to their roles as fathers. Drawing on an interview study with 37 fathers, we find that they use social media to document and archive fatherhood, learn how to be a father, and access social support. They also go online to support diverse family needs, such as single fathers' use of Reddit instead of Facebook, fathers raised by single mothers' search for role models online, and stay-at-home fathers' use of father blogs. However, fathers are constrained by privacy concerns and perceptions of judgment relating to sharing content online about their children. Drawing on theories of fatherhood, we present theoretical and design ideas for designing online spaces to better support fathers and fatherhood. We conclude with a call for a research agenda to support fathers online

Accessing Social Support and Overcoming Judgment on Social Media among Parents of Children with Special Needs

Over 10 million children are diagnosed with a special need in the United States each year. For their parents, the economic and emotional costs can be overwhelming. Using a mixed methods approach, we show that parents of children with special needs rely primarily on Facebook pages, Facebook groups, and Yahoo! groups for accessing information and social support. Specifically, these groups offer geographic communities for local needs (e.g. school services) and case-based communities for specific conditions (e.g. autism). Promisingly, parents perceive less judgment online than offline when talking about their children’s special needs; however, these perceptions are nuanced. In particular, posts containing humor, achievement, or treatment suggestions are perceived to be more socially appropriate than posts containing judgment, violence, or social comparisons. However, results show that social media generally fails at connecting special needs families over time and across the life span. We discuss implications for social media site design and for supporting special needs families

Examining the Influence of Alternative Technologies on the Group Technology Adoption Process

There is a long history of study to understand of why work groups do or do not adopt new collaboration technologies. However, research has focused on only one technology. The underlying assumption is that work groups can adopt or not adopt that one technology based on that technology alone. In making this assumption, researchers may have failed to realize the importance of alternative technologies in the adoption process or the fact that groups can adopt more than one technology. To address this issue, we examined an attempt by a scientific research organization to have its work groups adopt a particular group- collaboration technology. Although the target technology was more than appropriate for the task and the organization provided all the resources needed for work groups to adopt the technology, it largely failed. This was in large part due to the incorporation of two alternative collaboration technologies that acted as substitutes.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/117653/1/AOM 2015 Submission 16464 Group Adoption Process.pd