A Research Publication Attempts To Gauge How Many US Citizens Partake In Doom Scrolling, With Unhealthy Side Effects

A new study reveals that actively scrolling through bad news across social media platforms is linked with declines in both an individual’s mental and physical health.

Right off the bat, this seems like the most obvious conclusion that can be reached, but researches aren’t just conducted to prove obvious concepts: they’re performed to rule out other potential causes and/or solutions for said concepts. However, I’d like to state that I have a little bit of a bone to pick with this study and its parameters. This study surveys individuals by inquiring about certain online habits and scores them accordingly, but then doesn’t provide solid definitions of those scores to us. Therefore, the article will frequently use terms such as moderately, severely, or non-problematic, without us as readers having any knowledge as to how these terms are defined. Ultimately, though, we can probably make a good enough guess, so let’s further delve into what the research set out to do, and what it did or did not accomplish in the process.

The study was conducted by Bryan McLaughlin et al. and was published in the Health Communications journal. Its primary aim was to document and assess the phenomenon of “doom scrolling” amongst US citizens, therefore adding to the burgeoning volume of social media-related sociological studies. For those unaware, doom scrolling is an activity via which users frequent online platforms in the effort of identifying bad news that’s occurring in both their surroundings and the world at large. Think of it as the extended version of being unable to look away from a car wreck. While the phenomenon’s probably been around for a while, it gained true traction across 2020, which in and of itself felt like a year where anything that could go wrong managed to. This, combined with everyone being stuck with their electronic devices, led to unhealthy behavior patterns developing.

The research article surveyed 1,100 US adults and graded them on a four-point scale: non-problematic, minimally problematic, moderately problematic, and severely problematic. The population is almost evenly split across these four brackets, at 28.7%, 27.5%, 27.3%, and 16.5% respectively, which is good news. The severely problematic bracket has fewer individuals in it as compared to the rest of our categories: however, that still leaves a lot of people with troubling online behavior.

I think it’s important to realize just how much bad stuff occurs on a day-to-day basis, of course. However, doom scrolling is in and of itself a completely inefficient exercise, as the user partaking can do nothing to change their surroundings or contribute to most matters at hand. Ultimately, perhaps it’s best to simply stick to one’s morals, and spend their time accordingly.

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by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

What Do You Do Online? Survey Highlights Digital Habits Of Users Worldwide

In case you didn’t know, most of us spend a huge fraction of our lives staring at our devices but what is it that really takes up so much of our time?

Well, to help bring an end to the curious mystery, NordVPN has surveyed a number of global citizens representing different countries to see where they stand in terms of digital habits. And this is what they managed to gather so far.

Amount of time spent online: Country Rankings

The survey delineated the top countries that spend the most time on the web and some of the results are interesting, to say the least.

Brazil led the pack, followed up closely by South Korea, Taiwan, and then Spain. Canada took the 11th position, beating out the United Kingdom at rank 13, which was closely followed by the US.

Key findings of the study

Since the study was a global approach, the results obtained were also divided country-wise.

Here is a summarized version of what the study was able to conclude:

1. Brazilians spend most of their time online. To be more specific, that’s 41 years and 3 months.
2. Australians adore social media, where they can spend 9 hours on average each week.
3. The Japanese population spends the least time of their lives online, around 11 years to be exact.
4. Other than their real jobs, the French love their social media and movie streaming activities
5. The Brits are a huge fan of gaming, spending almost 4 hours per week
6. Germans like to divide their free time between television show streaming and social media
7. Citizens of the US lead a very balanced life in terms of the digital world
8. Canadians are addicted to media streaming, where an average citizen could easily spend 8 hours during just that.
9. The Spanish can’t help themselves when it comes to watching movies and television shows after work.
10. Taiwan’s population prefers to scroll through social media and stream videos online in their leisure time.

Can you make it through the day without using the web?

Well, it’s easier said than done in scenarios like these. According to the study, more than 50% of UK citizens surveyed said they just couldn’t help themselves from using the web. Surprisingly, Britain was towards the bottom of the list in terms of internet usage and that just goes to show how much people adore the web.

What type of information can you find about yourself online?

The fact that we spend hours online clearly must mean something. Hence, NordVPN ventured out to see what sorts of information can users really find on the web relating to themselves.

Well, first things first, you’ll find all of your bank details here. Secondly, relationship status and your address are other valuable information seen online. In the same way, your likes and dislikes along with your clothing size are other unique personal details that you are likely to come across when searching online.

Certainly, this study was a complete handful of insightful information for so many of us. The survey was commissioned by NordVPN where quotas were placed on a number of factors like age, address, and gender.

The time spent online was calculated through the average lifespan in a particular nation and it’s amazing to see how particular activities were measured individually.

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by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

A Study Reveals That 95% Of The World’s Contact Centers Will Be Automated By Next Year

According to a joint study between Replicant and Demand Metric, 95% of contact centers across the globe have implemented automation as a part of their services, or plan to within the next year.

Automation has become an essential part of contact centers ever since the voice answering machine entered the fold (and probably took a few hundred people out of their jobs in the process). Naturally, of course, the human element still needs to be a part of such centers because customer queries rarely ever fit a singular mold that AI can attend to. However, there is still a lot that can be automated and continually is by such services. Greeting and holding messages don’t need a separate branch of individuals when they can be left up to AI. Redirect numbers on phone lines can be directed by pre-recorded messages instead of a real person waiting to fill in each individual. With contact centers having evolved from landlines to involving all forms of communication including social media as a whole, there’s a lot of room that can be made for automation, and everyone’s eager to save themselves a few bucks here and there by doing so.

Replicant is a firm that exclusively deals in contact center automation, and I love its Blade Runner-inspired name. There are a lot of fun layers there, but I digress; the firm conducted a study with marketing guru Demand Metric to conduct research, consisting of over 300 contact center leaders, on just how prevalent automation is within the contact center industry. An easier question would have been something along the lines of “how prevalent is the opposite?”. It does warrant mentioning that automation isn’t just a desire to reduce production costs (even if I suspect that this ranks very high), but also a necessity that arises out of the need for effective customer service. The actual figures reported by this study reveal that 77% of respondents had customer care as a top priority, and 60% reported workforce concerns as also being a major concern. No one in the digital age likes to wait for long hours on telephones or message platforms. The goal is an efficient, quick call where work gets done and no one’s waiting for any longer than necessary.

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by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

Android Now Experiments To Support More Definitively Labeled Chrome Custom Tabs (CTT)

Chrome introduced a browser feature that was widely recognized as the Chrome Custom Tabs (CTT) feature. Luckily, many major browsers on Android are now supporting this feature.

You must have observed “Powered by Chrome" written under the three dots in Chrome 104 or previous versions. However, in the recent version of Chrome 105, “Running in Chrome" is released. This text is from Chrome Custom Tabs (CTT) alongside a new logo. The new logo is now surprisingly a full-colored symbol. While many people believed that the monochrome symbol was not so distracting as compared to the new one.

The Chrome Custom Tabs (CTT) that are now being supported by several major browsers on Android, provide more authority to the users over their overall web experience. Moreover, it also allows the app to personalize the looks and feels of the browser as per the liking of the user. The Chrome Custom Tabs (CTT) allows the app to alter things such as the color of the toolbar, insert custom actions in the toolbar of the browser, and insert entering and exiting animations.

The text “Running in Chrome” will now be visible in all the applications that are supporting the Chrome Custom Tabs. On a serious notice, it is comparatively way more user-friendly than the previous versions of chrome.

From Twitter, several third-party applications are also looking forward to supporting Chrome Custom Tabs (CTT). However, surprisingly, Instagram is resistant to supporting this new feature.

Google app was experimenting with its built-in browsers for the search results as well as the Discover feed for a very long time. However, the Chrome 105 version is still not yet widely introduced but it will be widespread throughout the world within a couple of months hopefully.

H/T: 9to5G

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by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

ByteDance Aggressively Downsizes Its Video Gaming Unit By Cutting Hundreds Of Jobs

Amid a new crackdown by the Chinese Government recently, TikTok’s parent firm ByteDance was recently seen downsizing its video gaming unit by eliminating hundreds of jobs.

The news has drastically affected the firm’s employees which many feel is a fresh sign related to the China exiting the very heavily controlled industry. This particular report was confirmed by insiders familiar with the whole situation.

The firm which is based in Beijing was seen pouring in millions in terms of video game operations. Now, it is busy shifting many employees to its Wushuang Studio in Shanghai after many members of its workforce had been laid off recently.

In June, the firm shut down its 101 studio as confirmed by a number of people familiar with the incident but who chose to remain anonymous to avoid further controversy on the subject.

The parent firm of TikTok would however be maintaining its gaming unit and a number of operations in the city as there are already several projects that have been launched as confirmed by Chinese local media outlets.

At the same time, we’re seeing the company eliminate more jobs at its Jiangnan Studio as well as its Hangzhou Studio that’s related to game development. For now, the company has failed to respond to any queries on the matter.

H/T: SCMP

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by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

RCS Is Gaining Traction Amongst Smartphone Users, and Will Grow Exponentially In The Coming Years

The mobile business messaging marketplace is projected to reach about USD 78 billion in revenue, according to a study conducted by Juniper Research.

The mobile business messaging marketplace, which is such a mouthful for what essentially boils down to a “messaging platform”, has been on an uptick since the late 2010s, despite social media platforms nearly killing off much of the competition. For those unaware, business messaging typically aligns itself with Rich Communication Services (RCS); a platform that was started by a group of businessmen who wanted to make the SMS experience “richer”. They believed that adding more features to texting would entice further attraction and revenue.

RCS was also marketed to the masses as SMS+ and Advanced Messaging. However, while it made a splash, the likes of Meta followed soon after with a cannonball. The introduction of Viber did absolutely nothing to kick things off (remember Viber, anyone?), but the likes of Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp have been making waves the size of obelisks, and RCS just could not compete. However, Juniper Research claims that this may soon be subject to change; or, more appropriately, the divide won’t be as harrowing.

Juniper Research is, as can be surmised from the name, a research firm that specializes in discussing market sizes and trends across different industries. They have now decided to tackle the industry of business messaging, and have found an interesting possible future for the service. RCS currently has approximately 400 million monthly users, which isn’t a bad amount but simply can’t hold a candle to the vast ocean of social media platforms that pull similar numbers for each app. Ultimately, though, it must be acknowledged that RCS has still carved out sizable niches for itself in the likes of the USA and China, its biggest marketplaces. Juniper Research also expects the marketplace to branch out from a total of 161 billion users in 2022 to 639 billion by 2026.

There are obstacles in the way, however, and a rather obstructive boulder takes the shape of Apple. The tech giant is a beast in the smartphone marketplace and accounts for a huge chunk of the world’s messaging user base. It also does not support RCS in the likes of iPhones, which cuts off a sizable piece of the service’s potential user base. If RCS wants to break through to modern cultural relevance, this massive hurdle must be overcome.

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by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

Instagram Tests New Method To Refine Its Reels Recommendations

Instagram and Reels are inseparable and whether you like it or not, the platform is doing whatever it takes to make sure the popular short-form content is maximized to its full potential.

Now, the app seems to be on the lookout for ways to better refine recommendations for users’ Reels. Therefore, you may have noticed how some users are now being able to incorporate a series of topics into their uploads.

This helps to better categorize their video clips as compared to leaving them scattered and unorganized.

Thanks to one avid user of the app named Jacki Pitkow and a little help from Matt Navarra too, there’s a new ‘Topics’ category up for grabs soon. This assists users in expanding their reach to others that may share similar interests.

This is being looked upon as a great way for the platform to better put its talent and potential on display through content that’s directed to a specific target audience. In the end, it’s all about boosting Reels' performance and we feel this is a great way to do just that.

Remember, the more people you connect and interact with, the better life becomes and the more chances you get to promote that brand of yours.

Instagram is also looking at this as the perfect chance to better finetune its recommendations on Reels. And that is definitely one major focal point for the app at the moment.

The platform is really keen on making more and more people watch Reels and that’s why you’re seeing the feature be added to almost every single element on the platform.

Definitely, the app has scaled down on this aspect, ever since the app’s users began to lodge more protests. Nevertheless, the flood of Reels still continues as more than 20% of people spending time on the app are doing so through this feature.

Instagram really wants more and more people to play Reels, based solely on recommendations provided by the AI database. They hope this can maximize user engagement and ward off the competition of attention linked to TikTok.

But Instagram knows that the struggle is definitely real and it still is unable to figure out the recommendation engine well enough yet. As Adam Mosseri says, people should be happy to see what’s being recommended to them but it’s just not been happening lately.

Instagram is going down that TikTok route but how well it really does at copying the app successfully can depend on two different factors.

Firstly, can the app manage to develop recommendations for its algorithm that are in line with TikTok? And by that, we mean an app that safely identifies users’ interests. Secondly, how keen are app users in wanting just that?

The first challenge is more related to how well the platform can better outline different elements and objects located in the content. And then link those to the users’ interests. Remember, TikTok has been doing a brilliant job at just that.

The second challenge is more linked to people being forced to watch Reels because the platform is squeezing them into every single nook and corner. And yes, they’re getting the views but are people really happy about what’s being shown or not?

This leads us to the creation of two very different schools of thought. One has to do with those that aren’t keen on downloading TikTok and like the Reels fad as something unique, fast, and fresh as far as videos are concerned.

The second school of thought has to do with those that prefer TikTok and don’t like seeing Instagram copy it out. Taking both these two groups together and creating a Venn diagram can really define the app’s success.

The better the recommendations, the more success for the app.

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by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World