Presented at Workshop Creativity and Attention in the age of the Web AT ACM WEB SCIENCE 2013 PARIS, MAY 1 2013

1. 1 May 2013 Creativity and Attention in the age of the Web @ ACM WEB SCIENCE 2013 1
Creativity and the
management of attention
with social media
Workshop
Creativity and Attention in the age of the Web
AT
ACM WEB SCIENCE 2013
PARIS, MAY 1 2013
Thierry Nabeth (Univ. Paris Sud, PESOR, FR)
Liana Razmerita (Copenhagen Business School, DK)
Kathrin Kirchner (University Hospital Jena, DE)

2. 1 May 2013 Creativity and Attention in the age of the Web @ ACM WEB SCIENCE 2013 2
1. Objective
Social media has strongly transformed social interaction dynamics of online
interaction on the Web: massive social transparency is creating some
pressure that affect people ability to process information (e.g.
interaction overload), but also influence their behavior (e.g. social
facilitation, hive effect, social loafing).
The objective of this (position-paper) presentation is to explore the
implication of this setting in the context on creativity online, and also to
look at how the understanding of functioning of “social media” and of
the “management of attention” can inform us in supporting creativity
online.
…

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2. Social Media: massive « social translucence»
The Web with Social media: a hyper-connected social space that is
inundated by a flood of social signals that people continuously emit and
decode, so as to make sense of this world and act upon it.
People are strongly affected by this massive « social translucence»
situation:
(1) It gives them access to information and knowledge including “tacit
knowledge”, and “social clues” (e.g. popularity) used to assess
knowledge.
(2) It influences their behaviors: the sense of being watched may hinder or
stimulate action (cf. social pressure & social facilitation); people may
also hide behind other (cf. social loafing) and be inhibited in their
actions.

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2. Social Media: access to knowledge
Access to knowledge: “social” information. Social process provides access to
information and knowledge including “tacit knowledge”, and “social
clues” (e.g. popularity) used to assess knowledge. But they have to
dedicate a significant amount of effort to manage (decode or generate)
this “social” information.
People are confronted by the dilemma:
(1) Interaction overload: They are at risk of being distracted, in a state of
constant social vigilance and of having their attention totally consumed
by this social interaction.
(2) Marginalization: If they do not engage into the social interaction they
are at risk of missing important information but also of being
disconnected (ignored by others = not having their attention).

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2. Social Media: social effects
Influences their behaviors: the sense of being watched may hinder or
stimulate action (cf. social pressure & social facilitation); people may
also hide behind other (cf. social loafing) and be inhibited in their
actions.
The effects:
(1) Social facilitation: people behavior can be stimulated or inhibited when
they feel they are being watched. (cf. Robert Zajonc Activation Theory)
(2) Hive effect: social pressure may «shutdown» divergent thinking (cf.
Jaron Lanier on « Digital Maoism»)
(3) Social loafing: people exert less effort when they are in groups. (cf.
Karau & Williams 1993)
(4) Flattering «narcissism». (cf. research on identity exposure on Facebook)
(5) … (Paretto effect?)

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2. Social Media: the management of attention
The management of attention with social media is about creating systems
that are attention effective, and that are more specially able to address:
• How people are able individually to allocate their attention interacting
with others in an effective way, therefore addressing the social
interaction overload issue.
• How the attention is managed at the level of the community, and more
specifically how the social effects (e.g. social facilitation, hive effect,
social loafing) are taken into account. This relates in particular about the
mechanisms that are used for the community as a whole to synchronize
(orient the attention of the community) in an effective way.

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3. Creativity
Creativity can be associated to a phenomenon in which people are
imagining “something” that is “genuinely new” and that is valuable, i.e.
that involves the fulfilling of the two criteria of novelty and
appropriateness (Hennessey & Amabile 2010). Creativity is less and less
considered as an isolated activity by a lonely individual. (despite some
negative effects of team interaction)
Supporting Creativity:
• It is more about establishment of a favorable environment rather than
a rigid process.
• The condition are complex and can «generally» be associated with
autonomy, focus (cf. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi), and inversely correlated
with time pressure, distraction, fragmentation of work, constraint, etc.

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3. Creativity, Attention & Social media
Attention effectiveness (managing properly information & interaction
overload, interruption, etc.) appears to be aligned with the same
qualities favorable to creativity (time pressure, distraction,
fragmentation, autonomy, etc.). Systems supporting effectively attention
(and notably in a social context) should benefit to the support of
creativity.
Attention effective systems (cf. attentive user interface, or other) can
therefore be used to support creativity, or to inform the design of more
specialized systems (for instance enhancing creative systems with attention
mechanisms). These system for instance may rely on personalization or
other mechanisms.

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3. Creativity, Attention & Social media
Yet, we can imagine that the design of system dedicated to the support of
creativity would benefit of more dedicated investigation, and notably in
relation to social dynamic of the interaction, and its consequence on
creativity.
For instance, it would be interesting to investigate the social effects that we
had mentionned at the beginning of the presentation (such as the hive
effect or the social facilitation), and its consequence on the quantity and
quality of ideas generated.