BACKGROUND: There is significant evidence supporting a link between excessive digital media use and adverse mental health outcomes. Since the average American teenager spends approximately 7 hours a day using digital media, this relationship has become of considerable interest in the field of public health. Studies have shown that anxiety and depression may both be associated with increased screen time as well as with Problematic Internet Use (PIU). PIU refers to a set of symptoms related to an individual’s inability to control their use of the Internet and appears to have characteristics of both substance use disorders and impulse control disorders. However, research on PIU has many limitations, including the lack of formal diagnostic criteria, unequal gender representation in study samples, and the relative dearth of studies conducted in adolescents, especially those with pre-existing mental health issues due to their status as a protected population. This study aims to address these limitations in existing literature through use of ecological momentary assessment (EMA), a research method that samples participants in their own environment repeatedly using one of various data collection methods (e.g. paper and pencil diary, text message surveys, app-based surveys). The specific aims of this study were: 1) to explore the feasibility and acceptability of a six-week daily EMA protocol in a clinical population of adolescents and young adults using a smartphone application, 2) to describe the relationship between PIU and depression/anxiety in a clinical sample of adolescents and young adults ages 12-23, and 3) to identify possible relationships on which to focus future studies of problematic digital media use and psychiatric symptomatology in this vulnerable population. METHODS: The study enrolled 25 adolescents and young adults ages 12-22 years who owned a smartphone and received mental health services at a community hospital in the greater Boston area. Participants were surveyed once a day for six weeks using a smartphone application, mindLAMP, to record self-report data. The daily survey included validated depression, anxiety, and PIU scales (the PHQ-8, GAD-7, and PIU-SF-6, respectively) as well as two sub-surveys inquiring about risky online behaviors and screen time use, and were collected via mindLAMP surveys. Participants also completed a short exit survey once their study period concluded. Feasibility was assessed by evaluating the sample-wide mean rate of response on daily surveys for the six-week protocol, rates of daily survey initiation and completion, and study completion rate. Acceptability was determined based on whether this data collection method provided more data than the current standard of care, which typically involves one meeting per week for psychotherapy. RESULTS: 96% of participants completed the study, and results demonstrated a 39.8% mean response rate, 43.2% mean survey initiation rate, and 38.5% mean survey completion rate. Type of phone use (overall rate p=0.029, initiation rate p=0.023, completion rate p=0.037), presence of an anxiety disorder (overall rate p=0.006, initiation rate p=0.038, completion rate p=0.004), and presence of co-morbid diagnoses (overall rate p=0.042, completion rate p=0.047) were significantly related to response rate, whereas age, gender, symptom severity, presence of an affective disorder, gender dysphoria, or ADHD were not. Regarding specific aim two, significant associations were detected between symptom scale scores and PIU and risky online behavior assessment (QUAL) scores such that: PIU-SF-6 and GAD-7 scores were positively correlated (p=0.032), PIU-SF-6 and PHQ-8 scores were positively correlated (p=0.050), GAD-7 and QUAL scores were positively correlated (p=0.004), and PHQ-8 and QUAL scores were positively correlated (p=0.0002). These results replicate findings in the literature of a significant relationship between anxiety and depression and both PIU and risky online behaviors. The lack of observed significant relationship between PIU and QUAL contradicts findings within the literature, and is possibly due to our small sample size. Significant associations were not detected between between categorical diagnoses of ADHD, Anxiety Disorders, Affective Disorders, or Gender Dysphoria and PIU-SF-6 scores. CONCLUSIONS: Results indicate that this EMA protocol is feasible and acceptable in this population, suggesting that this methodology may represent a new avenue to conduct research in adolescents and young adults with mental health concerns and, in the future, deliver treatment to these individuals. Limitations of this study include small sample size and participant bias in self-report data. Recommendations for future research include replication of this EMA protocol with a larger number of participants, incorporating methodologies that address the self-report bias. / 2022-06-07T00:00:00Z

This dissertation provides a comparative study of letters and digital media as infrastructures of modern Chinese romance. It examines young Chinese lovers’ experiences with digital media in comparison with their forebears’ experiences with love letters in order to understand how the increased ease of communication shapes Chinese romantic relating. Based on historical documents and in-depth interviews, this dissertation argues that the Internet and mobile technology augment Chinese lovers’ capacities to contact each other over distance, to express emotions that are restrained by conventions, and to create private alcoves in public places. These augmented capacities alter various boundaries in and around romantic relationship and intensify Chinese lovers’ negotiation between individuality and relationship, between disclosure and concealment, and between the public and private realms of life. Specifically, young Chinese lovers are better able to maintain a continual sense of togetherness but have more difficulty protecting personal boundaries and being alone. They find it easier to articulate feelings that are untoward in face-to-face speech, but they also find it harder to prove the sincerity of love in text and to avoid confrontation in impulsive message exchange. They have more access to a private space, albeit virtual, and more chances to publicize their romantic lives, but by doing so they also contribute to diminished sociality in offline public spaces and have to rely on the kindness of strangers for privacy more than ever before. For young Chinese lovers, digital media promise the freedoms that are regulated and controlled by social institutions in their offline worlds, but seeking these freedoms via digital media poses chges to their relationships with themselves, with each other, and with the larger social and public worlds they live in. These chges for romantic relating, as this dissertation argues, manifest the problems of the physical and the material while digital media facilitate spiritual contact over distance. The boundaries of personal accessibility are rooted in the limitation of human attention and ultimately in human mortality; the problem of sincerity in verbalized love lies in the difficulty of invoking deeds as the culturally preferred signifier of love; private nooks in public spaces are problematic both because bodily presence in physical locales entails expectations of sociality and because information storage in virtual venues requires a material apparatus that is beyond the control of individuals. As digital media reduce physical distance as the obstacle to lovers’ spiritual contact, they also intensify the tension between the spiritual and the physical aspects of communication and relationships. Overall, this dissertation provides a tripartite approach to the study of mediation and sociality based on three dimensions of communication: contact, content, and context. It emphasizes the importance of examining the ways in which communication media enable individuals to connect with each other, to express themselves, and to privatize or publicize their relationships. This approach provides a holistic understanding of how media shape modern sociality and how that mediation contributes to the shift of social boundaries and changes in social etiquette. In addition, this study enriches the current understanding of emerging media, particularly personal communication technologies (PCTs), as a social-technological combination, and proposes the study of the combination in plural and contradictory forms. Methodologically, it suggests the significance of studying both the symbolic and material aspects of mediated communication and of examining various modes, modalities, and genres of mediated communication as the locale where the material channels of media and the symbolic meanings of interaction intersect.

Bodybuilding “mecca” Gold’s Gym Venice is a popular hotspot for athletes, celebrities, and their fans. Traditional and new media celebrities inhabit the space together and use it for a variety of purposes. Social media influencers often congregate within the walls of Gold’s Gym, using the commercial space to film, host meet-ups with fans, and socialize with other social media stars. Recently, Gold’s Gym Venice has placed restrictions on when, where, and how the influencers can film. This study explores fitness influencers in relation to their environment, the commercial space of Gold’s Gym Venice, through the strategies and tactics (De Certeau, 2011) implemented by different social groups and the self-work (Banet-Weiser, 2012) done by influencers to construct authenticity for their followers and fans. Influencers have often been studied separately from their surroundings, and this thesis analyzes the social media personalities in connection with their surroundings in order to understand how new digital workers navigate creative work in a traditional commercial space.

The amount of information and the speed at which it is changing is fascinating and overwhelming. The capacity of our computer systems to process this information far exceeds the limits of our brains, making the systems of processing and organizing seem foreign and abstract. The anxiety caused by this information overload compels me to try and make sense of these systems by slowing things down, by recreating digital actions and artifacts by hand. At times my need to archive this digital world is genuine and results in sincere attempts to create physical records of the software and programs we use. But this cloud full of information, data, systems, and images is so elusive and mysterious that the frustration of creating a genuine archive encourages me to pull from software and systems at will, mashing them up in ways that are both generative and degrading. These then result in quasi-scientific, semi-fictitious images and installations that investigate possible histories and cultures that this invisible world might hold.

Orientador: Denis Porto Renó / Banca: Marcos Américo / Banca: Vicente Gosciola / Resumo: A opinião pública, segundo Walter Lippmann (2010), é aquela manifestada ou trabalhada pela mídia. Tendo como base esta definição, desenvolveu-se esta dissertação com o objetivo de analisar os efeitos nos processos de formação, manutenção e transformação da opinião a partir da transmissão de um posicionamento via humor junto ao público da internet. O corpus da pesquisa foi construído por sete produções de vídeos do Porta dos Fundos com temáticas do âmbito político, social e de gênero. Para tanto, discutiu-se o uso do humor crítico e político das esquetes, refletindo sobre a permeabilidade deles na opinião pública. A metodologia utilizada foi o estudo de caso analítico a partir da avaliação da temática, da quantificação das visualizações, das reações positivas e negativas e da duração dos vídeos. Após a coleta e categorização dos indicadores e dos dados, foi realizada a análise dos efeitos neste processo de construção da opinião pública. Como resultado, apresenta-se um panorama dos novos meios de comunicação, desde as antigas tecnologias até os "novos novos meios" propostos por Levinson (2012), no sentido de contribuir para a análise e discussão sobre a temática, observando que o Porta dos Fundos assume o papel de colaborador na construção da opinião pública, especialmente em termos localizados no âmbito do interesse público, fator norteador do jornalismo. Espera-se, com a conclusão deste estudo, oferecer subsídio para novas pesquisas sobre o tema, que posicio... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: Public opinion, according to Walter Lippmann (2010), is the one manifested or worked by the media. Based on this definition, this dissertation was developed with the objective of analyzing the effects on the processes of formation, maintenance and transformation of opinion fromthe humor transmitted to general public of the internet. The corpus research was constructed taking as a basis seven vídeo productions of "Porta dos Fundos" producer with political, social and gender themes. For that, the use of skits for critical and political humor was discussed, reflecting on their permeability to the public opinion. The methodology used was the analytical case study based on the evaluation of the thematic, quantification of visualizations, the positives and negatives reactions, the duration video. After the collection and categorization of indicators and data, the analysis of the effects in this public opinion building process was performed. As a result, it is presented an overview of the new media, from the old technologies to the "new new media" proposed by Levinson (2012), in order to contribute to the analysis and discussion on the subject, observing that "Porta dos Fundos" assumes the role of collaborator in the construction of the public opinion, specially terms in the scope of the public interest, a guilding factor of the journalism. The conslusion of this study aims to ofter bases for new research which might also consider that YouTube is increasingly becoming a tool of public utility, opposed to the previous ideia of just an entertainment website / Mestre

This paper seeks to answer the following questions in respect to the pedagogy of an experimental digital media university course: What are digital magazines? How do they involve a new design workflow? Are there certain industry trends in digital magazine production? How can this new technology be integrated into a class project?

As the use of mobile technologies, consumer electronics and the internet expand, there are more opportunities for young visual designers around the world to gain access to design industries. Yet differences in infrastructure and spatial configurations create distinct obstacles and opportunities for emerging designers from marginal contexts, as often these infrastructures are not designed with them in mind. Employing a practice perspective, which brings together concerns around identity and infrastructure, I used ethnographic and exploratory methods to understand the creative practices of a group of young, resource-constrained, aspiring creatives from Cape Town, South Africa, who are enrolled in design courses. This thesis explores tensions between authentic creativity and continuity, as well as notions of democratization in visual design practices. Off campus, young people predominantly appropriated mobile devices as infrastructure for creative practices. They used data frugally, grabbed media in patches and snippets, and used multiple free applications together to forge creative work, participation and distributions. These practices, which include mobile-based photography, design and branding, were situated in particular creative worlds, which revolved around distinctive visual styles. Instead of vast networks with flows of data that connect infinite nodes, these creatives experienced the web and digital media as an assemblage of technologies and tariffs for mobile data. Thus, these media-related practices were more ‘patchworked’ than networked. Once enrolled in design courses, a very different repertoire of protocols, standards, materials, technologies, concepts and ways of being became infrastructural to these young people’s participation in formal visual design practices. For many participants, an enduring distance separated them from those embodied, technical and spatial requirements for later professional participation in the design industries. These tensions demonstrated how very particular configurations of resources are infrastructural to visual design practice associated with formal industries. Infrastructure and practice are thus dynamically and asymmetrically mutually constituted. This thesis employs improvisational jamming to make the role of infrastructure visible, along with specific mobile design practices. Many of these mobile systems were standardized and encoded with cultural norms, giving creatives second-hand discourses from which to build their own creative artefacts. These case studies draw attention to the global standardization of infrastructures for creative practice, which threatens to flatten the cultural richness of local creative voices.

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Digital media has a huge impact on today‟s society. Technologies give opportunities for teachers to access different tasks, exercises, games and videos for teaching students a new language. This also means that teachers have opportunity to conduct more varied lessons to motivate students‟ learning. However, digital media comes with advantages as well as disadvantages. This project will therefore discuss the use of digital media for learning English as a foreign language and discover what teachers thinks about using digital media for teaching. To examine the use of digital media in today‟s school and teachers‟ views of using digital media for learning. This project will carry out interviews and observations on teachers from a selected school. Participants from the selected school are teachers who use digital media regularly to teach Swedish students the English language. Moreover, the participants also discussed the advantages and disadvantages with using of digital media in teaching.

This thesis explores the application of digital technologies in the creation of visionary or transformative artwork. The installation emphasizes number, color, symmetry, and the human form to create symbolic compositions patterned after ancient archetypes. Background research was done to inform the work through studies of the principles of visionary and transformative artwork as practiced by Ernst Fuchs, De Es Schwertberger, and Alex Grey. Connections between art and spirituality as explained by Kandinsky were studied to augment these principles. The sequence of artwork within the installation is comprised of both digital paintings and interactive triptych panels. To convey a sense of the mystical or sacred, the Rothko Chapel was used to inform the installation and serve as an artistic precedent. As the interactive work is created using realistically-modeled, computer generated characters, special consideration was given to understanding the "uncanny valley" and its potential effect in the interpretation of the installation. Interactivity is achieved through the use of ultrasonic sensors and Arduino prototyping boards.