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The proliferation of media-rich social networking services has changed the way people use information society and audio-visual media services. Existing theories of cognition in human-computer interaction have limitations in dealing with the unique problems that exist in contemporary virtual environments. The presence of significant numbers of people using these at the same time causes behavioural issues not previously envisaged at the time of multi-user domains (MUDs) or the first massively-multiplayer online role-playing games. To understand such large-scale virtual environments, this chapter makes use of data generated from questionnaires, usability testing, and social and web metrics to assess the relevance of ecological cognition theory for the current age. Through making use of a biometric measure called ‘knol', the chapter suggests a new framework for measuring emotion and cognition in these and future environments.

This chapter proposes automated screening of internet and multimedia communications through a combination of neuroeconomics to measure neuro-response plasticity through forensic phonetics, EEG monitoring, and EigenFaces. These measure neuro-response plasticity through facial differences, including through the eyes, differences in EEG pattern, and prosody in the form of tone of voice. Through describing the ‘Distress in the Mind Test', a computer program is proposed that can be implemented on any device with a camera and microphone and can therefore also be used to diagnose social orientation impariments, such as autism and social phobia. Further development would prevent people with social orientation impairments or whom are otherwise at risk from online harms being exposed to them through automated content filtering.

The beneficial effects of physical exercise on brain health are well documented, yet how exercise modulates cerebrovascular function is not well understood. This study used continuous arterial spin labeling magnetic resonance imaging with a hypercapnic challenge to examine changes in cerebral blood flow and vascular function after voluntary exercise in healthy, adult mice. Thirty exercise mice and twenty-one control mice were imaged prior to the start of the exercise regime (at 12 weeks of age) and after 4 weeks of voluntary exercise. After the second in vivo imaging session, we performed high-resolution ex vivo anatomical brain imaging to correlate the structural brain changes with functional measures of flow and vascular reserve. We found that exercise resulted in increases in the normocapnic and hypercapnic blood flow in the hippocampus. Moreover, the change in normocapnic blood flow between pre-exercise and post-exercise was positively correlated to the hippocampal structure volume following exercise. There was no overall effect of voluntary exercise on blood flow in the motor cortex. Surprisingly, the hypercapnic hippocampal blood flow when measured prior to the start of exercise was predictive of subsequent exercise activity. Moreover, exercise was found to normalize this pre-existing difference in hypercapnic blood flow between mice.

Research on digital addiction has been increasing significantly since the start of the 2010s. What is not currently available is a measurement scale to assess the extent to which adolescents are at risk of abuse on the Internet that might lead them to develop digital addiction. This chapter sets out to develop a check-list that can be used to risk assess those youths who might be at risk of digital addiction. Through using data from a study into 1,828 young people aged 9-16, the study devised a 6-point check-list based on using a t-test to determine those at high risk and those at low risk. The check-list can be seen as a reliable way for screening those adolescents for whom concerns are raised over their online activities. The chapter concludes that further research will be needed to test the scale with people in older age ranges.

The term large-scale virtual environment (LSVE) is not in the common usage. One might find discussion on massively multi-user online role-playing games (MMORPGs) and multi-user virtual environment (MUVEs), but these are sub-types of LSVEs and usually focus on the graphical element, not measuring the capacity of the individual users and the computation of their combined potential, nor the analysis of how they interact with one another to achieve mutual or opposite goals that affect the usage of data and their own nutritional resources. By investigating different user groups, internal and external representations and various thresholds, including the serendipity threshold, this chapter contributes to the understanding of how digital addiction manifests through a brain measurement called knol, which can be used as a floating-point unit.

This chapter looks at the role of the participation continuum in helping to improve relationships that have been damaged as a result of digital addiction. Digital addiction in this context refers to what happens when a person with a compulsion who is not getting that compulsion fulfilled turns to the Internet and other digital technologies in order to fill the void. The chapter is a case study of two people called Person D and Person G in order to make them anonymous. Using medical and other records, it was found that a number of different interventions using the participation continuum could have resulted in changes in the relationship in either holding it together or preventing one party from posting malicious and defamatory comments. The chapter found that a theoretical model, with algorithmic principles applied, called the transitional flow of persuasion model would be able to understand the impacts of digital addiction and provide a means to remedy it.

Digital addiction is a phenomenon where people who might take up addictive substances or other self-medicating activities do so instead with information and communications technology. The environment in which someone finds themselves is known to influence their behaviour. This might be as a result of the environment placing more demands on people with one cognitive set-up compared to those with a different one. One might not normally think of education environments as addictive, but the introduction of technology into them can affect different learners in different ways. Through computing a measure of brain activity called knol (k), this paper seeks to explore how learners with different learning styles react in environments that are differentiated according to the intensity of ICTs used and the physical architecture of the learning environment in which those ICTs are used.

A disability is a physical or mental impairment that has an adverse long-term impact on someone's ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities. This is often thought of in terms of medical conditions with clearly defined symptoms. This chapter, however, argues that it is these symptoms that can be considered to be the impairments and that in the right environment can in fact be advantageous. Someone may be have a medical diagnosis but not be symptomatic due to medication, for instance. In this chapter, a set of symptoms is made up from a number of different scales, called Social-Behavioural Traits (SBTs), which are affected by a person's Serotonergic-Dopamagenic Asynchronicity (SDA). This chapter discusses the role of affective computing in achieving harmony between people with various personality differences, including a model for explaining how technology can influence SDA and SBTs for the better.

Online communities are becoming an accepted part of the lives of Internet users, although participation in these communities is dependent on the types of people that form them. Some of the online community's members do not participate, people referred to as lurkers, whereas others who have been in the community for a long time, referred to as elders, participate regularly and support others. Understanding what drives these individuals and how they chose whether or not to participate will lead to online communities that thrive. This paper proposes a conceptual framework to describe what drives such individuals to carry out actions such as posting messages and adding content (level 1), the cognitions they use to determine whether or not to take such actions (level 2) and the means by which they go about carrying out the action in the environment (level 3). Finally, the framework is applied to the problem of encouraging members to participate by discussing the methods by which people can be persuaded to participate by changing the way they interpret their desires and their environment.

Social impairments materialise in a number of forms, from developmental disabilities such as autistic spectrum disorder, to psychiatric conditions such as social phobia. The individuals diagnosed with these problems find it difficult to deal with social situations through either the inability to perform in these situations or the fear of not being able to do so. The study investigated the social and practical implications of using Mobile Internet technology to deliver information relating to a social situation in real-time to participants with Autistic Spectrum Disorders (n = 10) and General Social Phobia (n = 3) diagnosed using DSM-IV. The participants used the agent on their mobile phone to convert phrases they found offensive or confusing into more concise and understandable definitions. Analysing their attitudes revealed that the technology enables socially impaired individuals to learn the meaning of emotions and understand more about how they communicate with their peers. However, the study concludes that governmental organisations, education providers and society as a whole need to adopt a cohesive approach to communication to ensure socially impaired individuals are fully included in society

The impact of alcohol on Internet use is relatively unexplored. This chapter presents the results of a study conducted over a period of 1 year, which investigated whether persons who stated on their e-dating profile that they drank alcohol were more or less likely to contact another person. The study found that increased consumption of alcohol resulted in a person posting more flames (i.e. abusive posts) to their target. No such difference existed in terms of whether a person drank alcohol in relation to whether they had a low education, spoke more about themselves, their target, or whether they posted kudos to their targets. The chapter concludes that further research is needed to uncover the effects of alcohol on participation in social networking services, so that young people, like Liam Stacey and Isabella Sorley are not unfairly targeted for Internet trolling.

The quantitative-qualitative and subjectivity-objectivity debates plague research methods textbooks, divide academic departments, and confuse post-modernists as to their existence. Those from the objective-quantitative camps will usually demand methods assume parametric principles from the start, such as homogeneity and normal distribution. Many of the subjective-qualitative camps will insist on looking and the individual meanings behind what someone is saying through their narratives and other discourses. The objective-quantitative camps on the other hand think anything that does not involve systematic acquisition and analysis or data cannot be valid. This chapter presents an approach to derive a parametric user model for understanding users that makes use of the premises and ideals of both these camps.

This chapter seeks to explore the role media content ratings play in the age of “Internet trolling” and other electronic media issues like “sexting.” Using ANOVA to validate a four-factor approach to media ratings based on maturity, the chapter finds the ability of a person to withstand various media content, measured in “knol,” which is the brain's capacity to process information, can be used to calculate media ratings. The study concludes it is feasible to have brain-computer interfaces for PCs and kiosks to test the maturity of vulnerable persons and recommend to parents/guardians or cinema managers whether or not to allow someone access to the content they wish to consume. This could mean that computer software could be programmed to automatically censor content that person is likely to be distressed or grossly offended by. Public policy issues relating to these supply-side interventions are discussed.

In the United Kingdom there were a number of rape threats made to prominent public figures who identify feminists. It led to three people being jailed, namely Isabella Sorley, John Nimmo and Peter Nunn. This was at a time when the UK police had identified around 50,000 online sex offenders but said they could not all be prosecuted. This study investigates the use of rape threats and other threatening language based on those tweeted by these people to see the contexts in which they are used. The study finds that most rape and other threats made are done as a joke and not with any real malicious intent. The chapter recommends on the basis of the evidence necessary for the authorities to use the judgement in DPP v Chambers, which would mean the context of an alleged abusive message would be considered.

Internet trolling as a term has changed in meaning since it first entered mainstream use on the Internet in the 1990s. In the 2010s, it has come to refer to the posting of provocative or offensive messages on the Internet to harm others. This change in usage of the term opens up new challenges for understanding the phenomenon, especially as some are still resistant to taking it beyond its original meaning. This chapter tries to distinguish the 1990s kind from the 2010s kind by referring to the former as classical trolling and the latter as anonymous trolling. Taking part in the former is considered to be “trolling for the Lolz” (i.e. positive) and the second to mean “trolling for the Lulz” (i.e. negative). Through using document and genre analysis, this chapter finds that there are common ways in which anonymous trolling manifests differently on different platforms. The chapter concludes by presenting a model for understanding which genres of online community are at risk for particular types of trolling.

The rise of social networking services have furthered the proliferation of online communities, transferring the power of controlling access to content from often one person who operates a system (sysop), which they would normally rely on, to them personally. With increased participation in social networking and services come new problems and issues, such as trolling, where unconstructive messages are posted to incite a reaction, and lurking, where persons refuse to participate. Methods of dealing with these abuses included defriending, which can include blocking strangers. The Gamified Flow of Persuasion model is proposed, building on work in ecological cognition and the participation continuum, the chapter shows how all of these models can collectively be used with gamification principles to increase participation in online communities through effective management of lurking, trolling, and defriending.

E-learning systems generally rely on good visual and cognitive abilities, making them suitable for individuals with good levels of intelligence in these areas. A group of such individuals are those with non-systemising impairments (NSIs), such as people with autism spectrum conditions (ASCs). These individuals could benefit greatly from technology that allows them to use their abilities to overcome their impairments in social and emotional functioning in order to develop pro-social behaviours. Existing systems such as PARLE and MindReading are discussed, and a new one, the Visual Ontological Imitation System (VOIS), is proposed and discussed. This chapter details an investigation into the acceptability of these systems by those working in social work and advocacy. The study found that VOIS would be well received, although dependency on assistive technology and its impact on how others view NSIs still need to be addressed by society and its institutions.

Knowledge it could be argued is constructed from the information actors pick up from the environments they are in. Assessing this knowledge can be problematic in ubiquitous e-learning systems, but a method of supporting the critical marking of e-learning exercises is the Circle of Friends social networking technology. Understanding the networks of practice in which these e-learning systems are part of requires a deeper understanding of information science frameworks. The Ecological Cognition Framework (ECF) provides a thorough understanding of how actors respond to and influence their environment. Forerunners to ecological cognition, such as activity theory have suggested that the computer is just a tool that mediates between the actor and the physical environment. Utilising the ECF it can be seen that for an e-learning system to be an effective teacher it needs to be able to create five effects in the actors that use it, with those being the belonging effect, the demonstration effect, the inspiration effect, the mobilisation effect, and the confirmation effect. In designing the system a developer would have to consider who the system is going to teach, what it is going to teach, why it is teaching, which techniques it is going to use to teach and finally whether it has been successful. This chapter proposes a multi-agent e-learning system called the Portable Assistant for Intelligently Guided Education (PAIGE), which is based around a 3D anthropomorphic avatar for educating actors ubiquitously. An investigation into the market for PAIGE was carried out. The data showed that those that thought their peers were the best form of support were less likely to spend more of their free time on homework. The chapter suggests that future research could investigate the usage of systems like PAIGE in educational settings and the effect they have on learning outcomes.

Online dating is a big business, allowing people from the comfort of their own home to view and read about potential mates all around the world. Different dating sites offer different services. However, it is not yet commonplace for Web sites dedicated to dating to use the social networking tools used by popular online communities, such as those that use the personal homepage and message board genres. The ecological cognition framework (ECF) provides a theoretical model regarding online dating communities’ behavior and relationship development. A model based on the ECF is proposed and provides a basis for developing online dating services that effectively support relationship development. Two investigations are presented in this chapter, one that uses a case study approach to identify and describe online dating services from the perspective of a specific case and another that assess the effectiveness of existing online dating services based on the guidelines developed from the case study. The case study provides a useful insight into the nature of social networking from the perspective of a specific case, which led to guidelines for developing e-dating systems that when evaluated showed that the most popular social networking services also score well against the criteria proposed in those guidelines.