Digital Possessions Research Articles

Identifying NFT consumer segments: a consumption value theory and luxury perspective

PurposeThe present research takes a qualitative approach to examine young adult consumers’ perceptions and intentions toward non-fungible tokens (NFTs). The goal of the study is to identify consumer sub-segments of young adults based on their perceptions of/intentions toward NFTs.Design/methodology/approachThis research utilized qualitative/thematic analysis.FindingsThe results revealed three sub-segments of young adults with different perceptions of NFTs. The largest group, Authenticators, perceive NFTs as luxurious digital possessions that are prestigious, have premium prices and are high quality. They are most likely to be early/late majority, but some are innovators/early adopters. The second-largest group, Pessimists, hold negative views about NFTs, seeing them as fads, silly and/or a waste of time and believing that investing in them is risky. These individuals are most likely to be laggards in terms of adoption. The smallest group, Futurists, hold forward-thinking views about NFTs. They are most likely to see themselves as innovators/early adopters, think of NFTs as the future of asset ownership, investment and digital life, and do not perceive them as overly risky.Originality/valueThe findings add to the scant literature on NFTs in marketing by documenting three potential sub-segments of young adult consumers for NFTs. NFT marketers should take care in effectively marketing NFTs’ value and addressing their risks to consumers as they relate to the identified consumer segments.

A Token Gesture: Non-Transferable NFTs, Digital Possessions and Ownership Design

This paper presents the design, deployment and qualitative study of a large-scale, public, generative art exhibition, through which passers-by could create artworks, and mint a non-fungible-token (NFT). Following the month-long exhibition, during which 229 anonymous participants produced artworks, 69 non-transferable NFTs were minted, we surveyed (33) and interviewed (14) expert and novice participants about their experiences. We explored contemporary challenges of owning digital things, and the extent to which NFTs, and 'Web3' technologies offer meaningful forms of ownership. Our findings describe how the inability to trade this NFT, and its unique circumstances of acquisition, made it meaningful in ways that extended beyond its immediate (limited) utility and offered participants something through which to construct identity. Reflecting on the aspirations, contradictions, and misconceptions of forms of ownership enabled by NFTs, we conclude with proposals for renewed attention in HCI to the nature of digital possessions, and the potential for 'ownership design'.

Materialism in social media–More social media addiction and stress symptoms, less satisfaction with life

Materialism describes the constant striving to increase and present one's possessions in the form of both material and immaterial goods. Social media, such as Instagram or Twitter, offer materialists new opportunities to pursue and satisfy their materialistic needs and goals. Preliminary work has already shown that materialists use social media to compare their possessions with those of other users and to accumulate digital possessions (in the form of friendships or followers). However, materialistic use of social media does not only bring benefits but could also negatively impact satisfaction with life (as a marker of subjective well-being) under certain conditions. In an online study (N = 1230), we examined the extent to which materialism on social media is associated with lower satisfaction with life. Evaluation of a sequential mediation model revealed that highly materialistic participants exhibited higher social comparison orientation, stronger associations with passive social media use as well as social media addiction, and thus reported higher stress experience resulting in lower satisfaction with life. Further results as well as limitations of the study and an outlook are discussed.

Information science and the inevitable: A literature review at the intersection of death and information management: An Annual Review of Information Science and Technology (ARIST) paper

AbstractDeath is an inevitable part of life and highly relevant to information management: its approach often requires preparation, and its occurrence often demands a response. Many works in information science have acknowledged so much, and yet death is rarely a focused topic, appearing instead sporadically and disconnected across research. As a result there is no introduction to, overview of, or synthesis across studies on death and information. We therefore conducted an extensive literature search and reviewed nearly 300 scholarly publications at the intersection of death and information (and data) management. Covering seven topics in total, we review two groups of work directly engaging information management in relation to death (digital possessions, inheritance, and legacy; information behavior, needs, and practices around death), three engaging death and technology that require information and its management (death and the Internet, thanatosensitive design and technology‐augmented death practices, and the digital afterlife and digital immortality), and two reflecting the ethical and legal dimensions unique to death and information. We then integrate the collective findings to summarize the landscape of death‐related information research, outline remaining challenges for individuals, families, institutions, and society, and identify promising directions for future information science research.

Digital Ownership: The Case of E‐Books

ABSTRACTOwnership of digital information products in the digital age presents an intricate issue. While research has shown that individuals experience a sense of ownership over their digital possessions, the scope of digital ownership rights in comparison to physical entities remains unclear. Amongst various digital products, e‐books stand out due to their ubiquity. This paper presents the results of an empirical research study that used an online survey to examine e‐book consumers' perspectives on digital ownership and digital rights. The study revealed that while most participants value and desire ownership rights, certain conventional ownership rights, such as reselling, gifting, and lending, are deemed less significant and can be relinquished by consumers due to cost‐related factors. Furthermore, contrary to prevailing assumptions, the study found no discernible generational gap concerning people's perceptions of digital ownership rights. These findings hold implications for researchers, policymakers, and public‐interest groups seeking to advocate for the public's digital rights.

Unconventional luxury brand collaborations: a new form of luxury consumption among young adults in China

PurposeThis study conceptualizes a form of luxury consumption in which luxury brands collaborate with unconventional non-luxury partners. These unconventional luxury brand collaborations are growing in popularity among Chinese luxury consumers of the post-1990s generation. Luxury brands are exploring new branding strategies due to the growing commercial importance of Chinese luxury consumers. Design/methodology/approachAn in-depth qualitative study informs this paper. Interviews with young adult luxury consumers self-identifying as Chinese reveal a growing interest for luxury brands that collaborate with odd partners in social media and online culture.FindingsUnconventional collaborations between luxury brands and non-luxury partners catalyze shifting meanings of luxury through the following juxtapositions: ephemeral instead of timeless, trendy rather than inaccessible, and playful in contrast with traditional. First, young Chinese consumers construct luxury meanings through ephemerality, like digital possessions, social media fame and fleeting experiences. Second, luxury meanings emerge in trendiness among social media influencers and online culture rather than in the seemingly inaccessible taste regimes of the upper class. Third, younger consumers appreciate fun, rebellious and over-the-top aesthetics in luxury brands.Originality/valueThe study contributes to the nascent field of unconventional luxury by conceptualizing how unusual, odd and unexpected collaborations constitute new forms of luxury consumption. The shifting meanings of luxury consumption that this study conceptualizes raise new opportunities and challenges for luxury brands. One of such is the release of limited collections with non-luxury partners seemingly at the opposite spectrum of design, image and values. Moreover, the study adds nuance to the understanding of luxury consumption among young Chinese consumers.

The ‘dizziness’ of accumulation: how digital collecting is undermining the very meaning of collection

Much of the previous research on collecting focuses on the resemantization of the object/item when inserted into a series that ‘releases’ it from its functionality and makes it an extension of the subject (Baudrillard 1968; Leone 2015). Digital collecting, however, essentially undermines the relationship between the collector and their collection, especially with the potentially endless accumulation allowed by the digital medium and the possibility it provides to gather items without actually owning them. The criterion of scarcity/rarity that used to prevail in traditional collecting is now replaced by a principle of abundance (Denegri-Knott et al. 2012), potentially opening new forms of ephemerality and meaninglessness. More specifically, these latter arise in connection to feelings of dispossession and uncontrollability that many collectors experience concerning their digital possessions, especially when stored online (Odom et al. 2012). And yet, new collecting practices can emerge, driven by the desire to share the content and with greater attention to its curation. Reframing these practices within a culture characterized by hyper-archivability (Brown and Hoskins 2010) and the fluid time of micro-archives (Pogačar 2016), the present contribution tries to shed some light on (some of) the contemporary trends in collecting, revealing all their ambiguity and the eventual return of the specter of illegality.

“Kind of Mine, Kind of Not”: Digital Possessions and Affordance Misalignment

AbstractThe objects we consume increasingly exist in digital form, from audiobooks and digital photographs to social media profiles and avatars. Digital objects are often argued to be less valued, personally meaningful, and self-relevant than their physical counterparts and are consequently dismissed as poor candidates for possession. Yet, studies have identified highly meaningful, even irreplaceable, digital possessions. In this article, we account for these contradictory narratives surrounding digital possessions, arguing that digital objects are not inherently unsuited to possession, but rather their affordances may not align with consumers’ imagined affordances (i.e., the object affordances that consumers anticipate). Drawing from a qualitative study of 25 consumers and their digital possessions, we identify three recurring types of affordance misalignment—missing affordances, covert affordances, and deficient affordances—that mediate how consumers and digital objects interact (pragmatic mediation) and, consequently, consumers’ experiences of, and beliefs surrounding, digital objects as possessions (hermeneutic mediation). We demonstrate that these affordance misalignments can create obstacles to consumers’ desired experiences of possession and document consumers’ attempts to overcome these obstacles by employing alignment strategies, with varied behavioral outcomes. This article advances debates surrounding digital possessions and presents an enriched affordance theory lens that provides new insights into possession.

The Reappropriation of Instant Messaging

Instant messengers (IMs) have created an unprecedented shift in interpersonal communication. This study explores how users reappropriate instant messengers, their motivations, and the associated factors behind this behavior. We conducted a survey, with 81 responses, and interviewed 14 participants to understand the unexpected ways instant messengers are used for purposes beyond communication, focusing on how they are used for Personal Information Management (PIM). We used an iterative process of open-coding and affinity diagramming to reveal three key themes: users' reappropriation of messaging technologies for saving, remembering, and transferring information; users' struggles and strategies to find information buried in conversations; and users' emotional attachments and attitudes about keeping and deleting this data. Our study reveals informality and accessibility as the primary motivators for reappropriating IMs and examines how this repurposing behavior connects to privacy, digital possessions, and lifelogging.

Valuing digital possessions: the role of affordances

AbstractIn this article, we introduce an affordance-orientated approach for the study of digital possessions. We identify affordances as a source of value for digital possessions and argue that dominant meaning-orientated approaches do not enable us to fully appreciate these sources of value. Our work recognizes that value is released and experienced in “the doing”—people must do things with digital objects to locate and obtain value in and from them. We distinguish three levels of affordance for digital possessions—low, mid, and high—and introduce the concept of digital incorporation to explain how the three levels of affordances come together, with the individual’s own intentionality to enable the achievement of goals. We draw from postphenomenological interviews with 47 individuals in the UK to provide a possession-based and lived experience approach to affordances that sheds new light on their vital role in everyday life and goals.

Consumer self-concept in the cyberspace: how digitization has shaped the way we self-disclose to others

ABSTRACT This study investigates digitization’s implications on consumers’ self-concept by focusing on how consumers build their self-concept and convey it to others in cyberspace. A systematic literature review (SLR) is undertaken using articles published on this topic in the last twenty years in scholarly business, management, and social science journals. The SLR method has been chosen as it considered as one of the most efficient and high-quality methods to acknowledge extensive literature on a subject, show the body of knowledge, let areas for further research emerge, and unveil the presence of research problems that justify further contribution to the body of existing knowledge. Five major themes characterizing consumer self-concept construction and disclosure online emerge: self-narration in digital spaces, ambivalence between the virtual and real self, digitization and self-enhancement, self and digital possessions, and privacy protection. Based on each topic, future research avenues have been identified. The analysis will help scholars identify some core issues and challenges that require further enquiry. In addition to academics, the analysis can also benefit practitioners who are confronted with a landscape that changes dramatically along with the technological advancements.

From feeling like rape to a minor inconvenience: Victims’ accounts of the impact of computer misuse crime in the United Kingdom

This paper provides a unique insight into the impact of computer misuse crime, such as hacking, denial of service attacks, ransomware and computer viruses/malware on individual and small and medium sized enterprises/organisation (SME/O) victims in the UK. Based upon in depth interviews with 52 (38 individual and 14 SME/O) victims it shows that these victims experience many of the impacts associated with other volume crimes. Building upon research on comparable offences the paper proposes eight categories of impact, which include:little or no impact, financial, disruption, psychological (which was broken down further), feelings of violation, loss of digital possessions, health and secondary impacts. The research highlights that although for some the impact is very minor, many experience much more extensive impacts, even when there is no financial loss and for some the impact was so severe it was compared to rape.

IN SEARCH FOR CYBER DEPENDENCE

Civilization progressed through phases like agrarian, semi-industrialization, industrialization, advanced-industrialization and arrived at Information age. Advances in ICT (Information and Communication Technology) transformed most revered ancient concept of ‘Knowledge’ from abstract to measurable form with considerable economic value. Produces of knowledge exercise, in form of data, analyses and documents etc., are being digitized increasingly and stored on servers across the globe building large knowledge warehouses [1,2,3]. Some of these are shared and rests are protected. Material value of these possessions are enormous and immensely attracts attention of cyber predators, armed with aggressive ICT tools and techniques. Cyber predators can now harm both material and digital possessions with digital tools. Thus, human possessions in either form; physical and digital, demands to be defended digitally and an environment of cyber dependence needs to be established. The scope of deliberation is vast though an attempt has been made to present a kaleidoscope of the issues that deserve attention [4,5,6].

Information School academics and the value of their personal digital archives

Introduction.This paper explores the value that academics in an information school assign to their digital files and how this relates to their personal information management and personal digital archiving practices. Method. An interpretivist qualitative approach was adopted with data from in-depth interviews and participant-led tours of their digital storage space. Analysis. The approach taken was thematic analysis. Results. Participants placed little value on their digital material beyond the value of its immediate use. They did not attach worth to their digital files for reuse by others, for sentiment, to project their identity or for the study of the development of the discipline or the study of the creative process. This was reflected in storage and file-naming practices, and the lack of curatorial activity. Conclusions. This paper is one of the first to investigate academics' personal information management and personal digital archiving practices, especially to focus on the value of digital possessions. The paper begins to uncover the importance of wider contextual factors in shaping such practices. Institutions need to do more to encourage academics to recognise the diverse types of value in the digital material they create.

The digital self and customer loyalty: from theory to virtual reality

As digital technologies become deeply integrated into everyday life, consumers have become increasingly connected to the ‘digital sphere,’ and businesses have sought ways in which to capitalize upon this growing trend. This work aims to bring Belk’s (J Consum Res 15(2):139–168,1988) seminal theory of self-development into present day by connecting its concepts with those of customer loyalty formation, highlighting how a modernization of this theory explains the means by which present-day customers are forming attachments to digital goods and the brands and companies associated with them. Through analysis of both historical and current literature regarding self-development, self-expression, and object attachment, we explore how consumers form connections to digital possessions, and how this process has evolved alongside the growing technological integration of daily life. Armed with this knowledge, we offer three propositions on how digital self-development will affect the marketplace, electronic word-of-mouth and customer loyalty in the future, and the opportunities in marketing analytics research to develop more accurate, nuanced metrics that can better encompass relevant aspects of consumers’ digital selves. Our intent is to expand upon existing loyalty literature by explaining how attachment is formed with digital objects, and highlight both the challenges and opportunities this creates in loyalty marketing analytics.

Losing information is like losing an arm: employee reactions to data loss

ABSTRACT A range of theories dealing with the relationship between people and technology focus on the ways people use available tools and technology for the purpose of extending their physical body. One way of creating a mentally extended self is through the digital possessions a person accumulates and organises. Digital possessions are comprised of digital items such as documents that a person identifies as belonging to him and representing his identity. The loss of a document thus translates to the loss of identity. The research literature on the loss of information in organisations deals primarily with the harm caused to companies. This Study examined employee attitudes towards the loss of information. The study was carried out using semi-structured interviews with 15 employees at an Israeli organisation, where a malfunction of the Outlook programme led to a loss of information. The employees experienced feelings of helplessness and loss of control upon discovering that their information was missing and compared the loss of their information to losing an organ. These feelings indicate that loss of information severely harms employees. In light of these findings, organisations may want to consider implementing employee training on personal information management practices, in addition to their security and privacy policies.

Transforming Transactional Marketing of Retailers Using Blockchain Approach

The commercial businesses like retailers of supermarkets have incorporated emerging technologies like targeted marketing, diversity marketing, transactional marketing, and various other strategies to generate greater business profit. Our proposed system aims to enhance the targeted marketing strategies by offering a reward based system using blockchain technology to maintain a blockchain of customers who can avail an offer proposed by the retailer. This system would be common to all the outlets of the retailer and a certain number of Value-coins (the cryptocurrency of the reward based system) would be issued to the customers on the purchase of every stipulated amount. Since the blockchain is a peer-to-peer digital cash system maintaining an immutable list of transaction records it can check the authenticity of each of the digital possessions (e.g. Value-Coins as in the case of this paper) using the distributed timestamp server technology. Thus, it makes it easier to realize the transactional marketing benefits using the blockchain approach.

Exploring aspects of the cognitive behavioural model of physical hoarding in relation to digital hoarding behaviours.

While the hoarding of physical objects has been extensively explored, there is little research relating to the hoarding of digital materials. The research that has been conducted suggests that digital hoarding (DH) behaviours appear to have some similarities with physical hoarding (PH) behaviours, and can be just as psychologically distressing. This study uses the framework of the cognitive behavioural model of PH to explore DH behaviours, including possible similarities regarding emotional attachment to digital possessions, and possible links with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and indecisiveness. For the study, 282 participants completed an online survey which measured levels of digital and physical hoarding, compulsive acquisition, OCD, indecisiveness and mood. Strong emotional attachments to particular types of digital possessions were evident: this was especially true for photographs and videos. Significant positive relationships were found between all the variables measured. However, a regression analysis revealed that only OCD and PH scores were significant predictors of DH. DH thus appears to share some of the features of PH. Implications, limitations and future research possibilities are discussed.

Digital Possessions, Extrinsic Aspirations, and The Role of Gender

This paper examines the effects of extrinsic aspirations (i.e. materialistic) and gender on value ascribed to digital possessions. Another aim of this paper is to examine the mediating role of self-extension tendency in these relationships. It is found that females have higher levels of emotion associated with their favorite digital possessions compared to males. The findings show that the effect of extrinsic aspirations on value ascribed to digital possessions is dependent on gender. It is found that females having higher scores in extrinsic aspirations had higher willingness to pay for the digital good compared to those having lower scores in extrinsic aspirations. Self-extension tendency mediated the value ascribed to the good. These effects are not valid for males. Under high levels of extrinsic aspirations, female consumers value the digital good more than male consumers. Under low levels of extrinsic aspirations, male consumers value the digital good more than female consumers.

Networked heirlooms: the affective and financial logics of digital estate planning

ABSTRACTThis article outlines the emergence of digital estate planning, a new way of managing post-mortem data, considering its cultural history and political stakes. I argue that Web 2.0 logics of interaction and inclusivity, and the subsequent valorization of social data, have led to a new form of accumulation. Unlike estate planners, who are legal professionals paid to manage the finances of wealthy clientele, digital estate planners are start-up company founders who handle the digital possessions of the masses. Because digital estate planning companies are not lucrative, often providing free services, they tend to quickly fold and vanish. Communicative traces do not contain intrinsic monetary worth in isolation. They are, however, speculatively valuable in aggregate, becoming potential networked heirlooms. They provide legible personality profiles of individuals to advertisers, government agencies, and companies such as Facebook and Google. Communicative traces also contain value in their capacity to produce and maintain social networks and affective bonds. Despite the failures of digital estate planning as an enterprise, networked heirlooms point to the dual financial and affective value of personal data under late capitalism.