Exploratory research into users’ emotional relationships with content feeds

The following is a snippet from a paper of the same name, submitted for Applied Human Computer Interaction course, 2015.

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Background

“When we go online, we enter an environment that promotes cursory reading, hurried and distracted thinking, and superficial learning. Even as the Internet grants us easy access to vast amounts of information, it is turning us into shallower thinkers, literally changing the structure of our brain.” (Carr, 2010)

There has been ever-increasing coverage and awareness of “social media addiction” – a form of behavioural addiction that is tied to the use of social media platforms (Grant, Potenza, Weinstein & Gorelick, 2010). However, behavioural addictions also extend to other activities, such as browsing news sites, suggesting that the triggers may go beyond that of a just social connection. 

In addition, there is public awareness of the complexity of the algorithms that content sites such as Facebook use to serve users information that would “make the most engaging feed” (Yarow, 2014) – highlighting the connection between content curation and user engagement. In contrast, less attention is paid to the form in which content is delivered to the user.

Perhaps part of the problem isn’t just what content is being served to the user, but also how. The endless stream of content, presented in staccato snippets that collage disparate content types may not be conducive to higher-level comprehension. Easier access to larger quantities of information is a powerful privilege, however, without the knowledge of how to process it correctly, insight can be limited. Parallels can be drawn with increase in access to “big data” – something that would be useless without knowledge of how to query, analyse and visualise it. It is possible that such techniques may be useful to translate to the visualization of streams of content.

As they currently exist, content feeds predominantly focus on displaying larger quantities of smaller snapshots of information. However, from a psychologist’s point of view, there is a cap to the information that can flow into our working memory (cognitive load) (Carr, 2010). “When the load exceeds our mind’s ability to process and store it, we’re unable to retain the information or to draw connections with other memories,” (Carr, 2010). Therefore, although users may be exposed to larger quantities of information, retention of larger quantities is not guaranteed, which may lead to user dissatisfaction. Furthermore, “the penalty is amplified by what brain scientists call switching costs. Every time we shift our attention, the brain has to reorient itself, further taxing our mental resources” (Carr, 2010).

Previous studies have been conducted on user interface components that deal with the presentation of search results – research that could also be useful in informing the presentation of feeds (Bernard, Baker & Fernandez, 2002). However, they did not consider the specific requirements that are native to content feeds (as opposed to search results), and such studies typically investigate user perception of existing techniques – namely infinite scroll and pagination – rather than using exploratory research to create new paradigms, or test acceptance for alternative navigation models such as Apple’s Project X (HotSauce) (Garden, 2009), Newsgroup Crowds by Fernanda Viegas (Viegas, 2004) or TextPool by the Visual Experience Lab (Vxlab.csc.ncsu.edu, 2015).

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Discussion and Conclusion

In preparation for future design development, this early-stage research aimed to investigate the key interaction issues that users have with the format of content feeds. An exploratory and qualitative method was chosen for this early-stage. The innovative, yet familiar, method of writing love letters and breakup letters was selected to engage participants in the discussion of their emotional connection to content feeds. This method, although a methodology used by researchers like Smart Design, also occurs spontaneously as a medium for users to express strong sentiment about a product or service (particularly social media) (Eat24, 2014), indicating a good fit for the study in question. 

Participants expressed a complex relationship with content feeds, where the same feature could be seen as a positive as well as a negative thing. For example, participants noted that the repetitive endless scrolling could be a calming action, as long as the feed was providing engaging content (feedback noted that content needed to be consistent, yet also surprising). On the other hand, infinite scroll was seen as a negative feature as it has the capacity to deeply engage the user, eventually leading the user to feel like they have lost control and wasted time. Generally, participants emphasised that they felt “locked-into” the feed, both through the inherent discouraging of click-throughs (fear of losing place in feed; abruption of flow), as well as through the lack of cues for stopping or closure. 

Secondary sources have also supported this divergent emotional connection with content feeds (causing both calm and anxiety), with a rising number of studies being performed on behavioural addictions, in particular those pertaining to internet and social media (Grant, Potenza, Weinstein & Gorelick, 2010). The “calming” effect of a social media feed has been linked with oxytocin release in the nucleus accumbens - a “reward” mechanism that is also linked with food, sex, and money (Meshi, Morawetz & Heekeren, 2013). This physiological process also means that indulging in the feed can lead to addictive behaviour (just like with food, sex, and money), substantiating “the neurobiological link between social media addiction and reward activity in the brain” (Meshi, Morawetz & Heekeren, 2013).

However, although social media feeds contain a social incentive for the user’s emotional connection, similar effects have been noted with other content feeds – such as news feeds – which have less personal social connections with users (Grant, Potenza, Weinstein & Gorelick, 2010). This could imply that the effect is caused by a more complex combination of factors, one of which may be the format in which information and content is presented to the user.

Participants in this study mirrored this sentiment of addiction, regardless of whether the feed they were talking about had a social component or not. Participants expressed this both as a good and a bad thing, some of them also describing a feeling of persistent guilt that accompanied their interactions. Many participants wanted to write the breakup letter first, implying that they harbour strong negative views of the subject, although, as defined by each participant’s feed selection, the participant is a frequent and familiar user of the feed. Responses also often talked about how the content feed become embedded in their daily ritual, often at the very start or very end of their day, indicating both the habitual status that the feed has reached in their lives as well as indicating their desire for connection before and after sleep.

This study resulted in the formation of the hypothesis: there is user discomfort with the current format of content feeds and that there is need for optimisation to increase positive user perception and experience. Particular pain points include features like the infinite scroll, and lack of markers of context or scope as well as the absence of closure. Further research will need to be undertaken to test this hypothesis.

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References

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