1 May 2013 Creativity and Attention in the age of the Web @ ACM WEB SCIENCE 2013 1 Creativity and...

1 May 2013 Creativity and Attention in the age of the Web @ ACM WEB SCIENCE 2013 1

Creativity and the management of attention with social media

WorkshopCreativity and Attention in the age of the WebATACM WEB SCIENCE 2013PARIS, MAY 1 2013

Thierry Nabeth (Univ. Paris Sud, PESOR, FR)

Liana Razmerita (Copenhagen Business School, DK)

Kathrin Kirchner (University Hospital Jena, DE)

http://ac.aup.fr/~croda/tclab/creativity&attentionWorkshop2013.html

21 May 2013 Creativity and Attention in the age of the Web @ ACM WEB SCIENCE 2013

1. Objective

Social media has strongly transformed social interaction dynamics of online interaction on the Web: massive social transparency is creating some pressure that affect people ability to process information (e.g. interaction overload), but also influence their behavior (e.g. social facilitation, hive effect, social loafing).

The objective of this (position-paper) presentation is to explore the implication of this setting in the context on creativity online, and also to look at how the understanding of functioning of “social media” and of the “management of attention” can inform us in supporting creativity online.

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37 Février 2013 Creativity and Attention in the age of the Web @ ACM WEB SCIENCE 2013

2. Social Media: massive « social translucence»

The Web with Social media: a hyper-connected social space that is inundated by a flood of social signals that people continuously emit and decode, so as to make sense of this world and act upon it.

People are strongly affected by this massive « social translucence» situation:

(1) It gives them access to information and knowledge including “tacit knowledge”, and “social clues” (e.g. popularity) used to assess knowledge.

(2) It influences their behaviors: the sense of being watched may hinder or stimulate action (cf. social pressure & social facilitation); people may also hide behind other (cf. social loafing) and be inhibited in their actions.


2. Social Media: access to knowledge

Access to knowledge: “social” information. Social process provides access to information and knowledge including “tacit knowledge”, and “social clues” (e.g. popularity) used to assess knowledge. But they have to dedicate a significant amount of effort to manage (decode or generate) this “social” information.

People are confronted by the dilemma:(1) Interaction overload: They are at risk of being distracted, in a state of

constant social vigilance and of having their attention totally consumed by this social interaction.

(2) Marginalization: If they do not engage into the social interaction they are at risk of missing important information but also of being disconnected (ignored by others = not having their attention).


2. Social Media: social effects

Influences their behaviors: the sense of being watched may hinder or stimulate action (cf. social pressure & social facilitation); people may also hide behind other (cf. social loafing) and be inhibited in their actions.

The effects:(1) Social facilitation: people behavior can be stimulated or inhibited when

they feel they are being watched. (cf. Robert Zajonc Activation Theory)(2) Hive effect: social pressure may «shutdown» divergent thinking (cf.

Jaron Lanier on « Digital Maoism»)(3) Social loafing: people exert less effort when they are in groups. (cf.

Karau & Williams 1993)(4) Flattering «narcissism». (cf. research on identity exposure on Facebook)(5) … (Paretto effect?)


2. Social Media: the management of attention

The management of attention with social media is about creating systems that are attention effective, and that are more specially able to address:

• How people are able individually to allocate their attention interacting with others in an effective way, therefore addressing the social interaction overload issue.

• How the attention is managed at the level of the community, and more specifically how the social effects (e.g. social facilitation, hive effect, social loafing) are taken into account. This relates in particular about the mechanisms that are used for the community as a whole to synchronize (orient the attention of the community) in an effective way.


3. Creativity

Creativity can be associated to a phenomenon in which people are imagining “something” that is “genuinely new” and that is valuable, i.e. that involves the fulfilling of the two criteria of novelty and appropriateness (Hennessey & Amabile 2010). Creativity is less and less considered as an isolated activity by a lonely individual. (despite some negative effects of team interaction)

Supporting Creativity:• It is more about establishment of a favorable environment rather than

a rigid process.• The condition are complex and can «generally» be associated with

autonomy, focus (cf. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi), and inversely correlated with time pressure, distraction, fragmentation of work, constraint, etc.


3. Creativity, Attention & Social media

Attention effectiveness (managing properly information & interaction overload, interruption, etc.) appears to be aligned with the same qualities favorable to creativity (time pressure, distraction, fragmentation, autonomy, etc.). Systems supporting effectively attention (and notably in a social context) should benefit to the support of creativity.

Attention effective systems (cf. attentive user interface, or other) can therefore be used to support creativity, or to inform the design of more specialized systems (for instance enhancing creative systems with attention mechanisms). These system for instance may rely on personalization or other mechanisms.


3. Creativity, Attention & Social media

Yet, we can imagine that the design of system dedicated to the support of creativity would benefit of more dedicated investigation, and notably in relation to social dynamic of the interaction, and its consequence on creativity.For instance, it would be interesting to investigate the social effects that we had mentionned at the beginning of the presentation (such as the hive effect or the social facilitation), and its consequence on the quantity and quality of ideas generated.

1 May 2013 Creativity and Attention in the age of the Web @ ACM WEB SCIENCE 2013 1 Creativity and...

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