Author: The Conversation

It could be argued artificial intelligence (AI) is already the indispensable tool of the 21st century. From helping doctors diagnose and treat patients to rapidly advancing new drug discoveries, it’s our trusted partner in so many ways. Now it has found its way into the once exclusively-human domain of love and relationships. With AI-systems as matchmakers, in the coming decades it may become common to date a personalised avatar. This was explored in the 2014 movie “Her”, in which a writer living in near-future Los Angeles develops affection for an AI system. The sci-fi film won an Academy Award for depicting what…

How many emails are in your inbox? If the answer is thousands, or if you often struggle to find a file on your computer among its cluttered hard drive, then you might be classed as a digital hoarder. In the physical world, hoarding disorder has been recognised as a distinct psychiatric condition among people who accumulate excessive amounts of objects to the point that it prevents them living a normal life. Now, research has begun to recognise that hoarding can be a problem in the digital world, too. A case study published in the British Medical Journal in 2015 described a 47-year-old…

An estimated one in three people report regular sleep complaints. So it’s hardly surprising people are more concerned than ever about getting enough sleep. This blossoming interest has seen an explosion of sleep trackers which measure how many hours of sleep you get each night. As we sleep, we go through cycles of “deep”, “light” and “rapid eye movement” (REM) sleep. The “deep” portion of our sleep is mainly what leaves us feeling refreshed the next day. Most sleep trackers are a watch worn on the wrist, and work by monitoring your body movements as you sleep to determine how much time…

As the pandemic forced many Americans to hunker down at home, the video game industry saw record spending and profits in 2020. Interacting with other people through gaming became, for some players, essential for social connection. As an education researcher and professor of digital literacy, I study the education benefits and perils of digital gaming. These range from providing opportunities for collaborative problem-solving to displaying content that perpetuates racism and sexism. Connection and collaboration Digital games can provide a forum for a diverse group of people to come together. That’s especially important now, while our physical locations are restricted. During the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, undergraduates…

Though you can’t see them, radio waves are all around you all the time, carrying information. For most people, some of those radio waves are Wi-Fi signals. Wi-Fi is the catchy name an industry alliance came up with to market devices that transmit large amounts of data over short distances using radio waves. The letters don’t stand for anything. Wi-Fi, like broadcast radio and cellular telephone signals, is based on scientific discoveries dating back to the late 19th century. When electrons moving through a wire are made to alternate directions periodically, something magical happens. Electrons in another wire, located at a distance,…

TV viewing has become more important during the pandemic, but a sense of shame still lingers around it. Even TV scholars still use the term “guilty pleasures” to describe their enjoyment of reality TV or series which attract some of the biggest viewing audiences, such as I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here, The Voice or Dancing With the Stars. Some even call comforting, escapist dramas like Death in Paradise or Bridgerton their “guilty pleasures”. Such television still attracts the same negative labels (“unchallenging”, “low brow”) that were given to its antecedents in the 1950s. I remember the pleasure…

It’s hard to imagine navigating modern life without a mobile phone in hand. Computers, tablets and smartphones have transformed how we communicate, work, learn, share news and entertain ourselves. They became even more essential when the COVID-19 pandemic moved classes, meetings and social connections online. But few people realize that our reliance on electronics comes with steep environmental costs, from mining minerals to disposing of used devices. Consumers can’t resist faster products with more storage and better cameras, but constant upgrades have created a growing global waste challenge. In 2019 alone, people discarded 53 million metric tons of electronic waste. In our work as sustainability…

Facebook made news this week by blocking U.S. President Donald Trump from posting to its platform. A seperate power struggle between government and Big Tech that will be far more consequential in the long term is unfolding in the background. The United States government seems prepared to rein in the social media giant and potentially break up the company. In December 2020, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and attorneys general from 46 states launched antitrust proceedings. After months of theatrical congressional testimony by various tech CEOs, this development represents an escalation that could ultimately determine the balance of power between the U.S. government and Silicon Valley. Antitrust is…

Sales of exercise gear and technology-based fitness tools have exploded in the U.S. as people try to maintain their workout regimens without going to the gym. Purchases range from simple dumbbells and outdoor bicycles to internet-connected devices such as the Peloton stationary bike or the Tonal digital weight machine. There are exercise video games like Nintendo’s Wii Fit and PS-2’s Eye Toy: Kinetic; wearable technology like Fitbits or Apple Watches; and mobile apps like Strava. People are even using platforms like Zoom or Skype to connect with a personal trainer. These connected fitness tools bring together your exercise workouts and your digital life. As researchers…

The restrictions associated with the COVID-19 pandemic drove life online in 2020, where it will probably remain for much of 2021. The way we communicate quickly pivoted to Zoom meetings, remote learning and messaging on social media. And in the absence of face-to-face interactions, people quickly became more reliant on emojis to help express their thoughts and feelings to an audience they can no longer see in person. The digital shift has made the emoji an integral part of written language. Ninety-two per cent of consumers online use some form of emoji in their communications. On Instagram, nearly half of the posts contain emojis. In 2015, the Oxford Dictionary went so…