Everyday Life Information Research Articles

Memory flexibility training for autobiographical memory as an intervention for maintaining social and mental well-being in older adults

ABSTRACTAutobiographical memory specificity (AMS) reduces with increasing age and is associated with depression, social problem-solving and functional limitations. However, ability to switch between general and specific, as well as between positive and negative retrieval, may be more important for the strategic use of autobiographical information in everyday life. Ability to switch between retrieval modes is likely to rely on aspects of executive function. We propose that age-related deficits in cognitive flexibility impair AMS, but the “positivity effect” protects positively valenced memories from impaired specificity. A training programme to improve the ability to flexibly retrieve different types of memories in depressed adults (MemFlex) was examined in non-depressed older adults to determine effects on AMS, valence and the executive functions underlying cognitive flexibility. Thirty-nine participants aged 70+ (MemFlex, n = 20; control, n = 19) took part. AMS and the inhibition aspect of executive function improved in both groups, suggesting these abilities are amenable to change, although not differentially affected by this type of training. Lower baseline inhibition scores correlated with increased negative, but not positive AMS, suggesting that positive AMS is an automatic process in older adults. Changes in AMS correlated with changes in social problem-solving, emphasising the usefulness of AMs in a social environment.

The Answer Is in the Question? Mood Effects on Processing Verbal Information and Impression Formation

Can good or bad mood influence how people process verbal information about others? Based on affect-cognition theories, this experiment predicted and found that the way a question is phrased has a greater influence on impressions than actual answers when judges are experiencing a negative rather than a neutral or positive mood. After an audiovisual mood induction, participants witnessed interview questions and responses by two target characters. The same level of extroversion was communicated, either by affirmative responses to questions about extraversion, or by negative responses to questions about introversion. Question format had a significant influence on impressions in negative mood but not in neutral or positive mood. The implications of these results for interpreting linguistic information in everyday social life are considered, and their relevance to contemporary affect-cognition theorizing is discussed.

The everyday life information behaviour of immigrants: A case of Bangladeshi women

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Everyday life information seeking: sex-based associations with where men and women receive information about sexual violence

ABSTRACTSexual violence remains a critical health concern, especially on college campuses. Men and women are susceptible to victimization; however, there is little research that explores the places in which each sex acquires information about this topic. In this study, a model for everyday life information seeking is utilized to determine whether sex-based associations exist in the ways college students receive information about sexual violence. Barriers to reporting victimization for each sex are also explored. Undergraduate students (N = 285) completed an online survey about their everyday life information seeking experiences and perceived barriers to reporting victimization. Findings from this study suggest that sex is associated with coming across information serendipitously (non-direct monitoring) and through browsing (active scanning). Many women (47.2%) and men (57.0%) reported never having actively sought sexual assault information. Men who had actively sought information reported web search as a common method. This is alarming as previous research suggests that content is lacking and at times absent from university websites. Resources aimed at men are also uncommon. Notable associations exist between sex and the ways in which information is received about sexual violence. Exploring the contexts in which information is received highlights areas that health communication practitioners and scholars should disseminate information and engage students about sexual assault. In connecting with students where they are, we will increase the likelihood that they encounter content, potentially decreasing stigma and promoting the much needed, ongoing conversation about sexual assault for both sexes.

Rebooting Empathy for the Digital Generation Lawyer

There is a growing preference in today’s technology-saturated society for online interaction via email, text messages, social networks, and instant messaging, rather than real-world interaction through face-to-face or telephonic conversations. For today’s young people—the Digital Generation—this is more than a mere preference; it is a way of life. Research indicates that the movement toward virtual communication comes with negative consequences, such as poor real-world communication skills and underdeveloped social skills. Most significantly, research suggests that the Digital Generation are less empathic than elder generations are. Some researchers speculate that the rising prominence of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in everyday life may have contributed to the Digital Generation’s decreased empathy. Today’s young ICT devotees are tomorrow’s future legal professionals. And when the Digital Generation enter legal practice they will find it entails far more than just reading cases and spotting issues. They will be called upon to counsel, to advocate, to persuade, and to adjudicate. To succeed in legal practice the Digital Generation will need strong empathic abilities. There are clear negative implications for the legal profession’s future if successful legal practice requires particular interpersonal skills but ICT usage is preventing the Digital Generation from developing these skills. This article analyzes social science literature regarding declining empathy, the Digital Generation, and technology. It establishes the importance of empathy in legal practice and examines prior suggestions for improving the legal profession’s historically fraught relationship with empathy. It then proposes new strategies to reverse this empathy decline so the Digital Generation may become successful legal practitioners despite—or perhaps even because of—their use of ICTs.

Higher health literacy is associated with better glycemic control in adults with type 1 diabetes: a cohort study among 1399 Danes

AimSelf-management of diabetes is influenced by a range of factors including the ability to access, understand, appraise, and use of health information in everyday life, which can collectively be called...

Episodic Memory for Dynamic Social Interaction Across Phase of Illness in Schizophrenia.

Although a number of studies examined recollection and familiarity memory in schizophrenia, most of studies have focused on nonsocial episodic memory. Little is known about how schizophrenia patients remember social information in everyday life and whether social episodic memory changes over the course of illness. This study aims to examine episodic memory for dynamic social interaction with multimodal social stimuli in schizophrenia across phase of illness. Within each phase of illness, probands and demographically matched controls participated: 51 probands at clinical high risk (CHR) for psychosis and 36 controls, 80 first-episode schizophrenia patients and 49 controls, and 50 chronic schizophrenia patients and 39 controls. The participants completed the Social Remember-Know Paradigm that assessed overall social episodic memory, social recollection and familiarity memory, and social context memory, in addition to social cognitive measures and measures on community functioning. Probands showed impairment for recollection but not in familiarity memory and this pattern was similar across phase of illness. In contrast, impaired social context memory was observed in the first-episode and chronic schizophrenia samples, but not in CHR samples. Social context memory was associated with community functioning only in the chronic sample. These findings suggest that an impaired recollection could be a vulnerability marker for schizophrenia whereas impaired social context memory could be a disease-related marker. Further, a pattern of impaired recollection with intact familiarity memory for social stimuli suggests that schizophrenia patients may have a different pattern of impaired episodic memory for social vs nonsocial stimuli.

Becoming a Good Homecare Practitioner: Integrating Many Kinds of Work

The paper reports from a homecare fieldwork and discusses the various types of work carried out by homecare workers. We describe formal guidelines for quality in homecare services as a background for looking deeper into the homecare practices and using them as a basis for discussing what high quality homecare is. We have identified seven types of homecare work needed in homecare: illness work, everyday life work, life-changing work, relation work, discretion work, information work and articulation work and we discuss quality in each of these as well as in the homecare as a whole. We exemplify how the quality criteria can be achieved in practice.

Usage and Usefulness of Social Media in Everyday-Life Information Seeking Among International Students

In recent years, the number of students studying abroad has been increasing rapidly. However, adapting to life in different countries, particularly in Malaysia which is a multi-cultural country, is difficult and students are faced with a variety of challenges. As such, they may need more information for their cultural adaptation or daily life use from diverse channels or sources. By conducting focus group discussions, this study focuses on examining the use of social media and its usefulness in everyday-life information seeking (ELIS) among international students at the University of Malaya. Focus group discussions among graduate students suggested that social media ELIS centre around information about home and families, academic matters and news/current affairs. On the other hand, new/current affairs, self-improvement and information about friends for socialization emerged as key in their ELIS on social media. What is apparent, however, is that international students view the information acquired via social media is useful for the fulfilment of their everyday-life needs.

Motives for sharing illness experiences on Twitter: conversations of parents with children diagnosed with cancer

ABSTRACTA patient- and family-centred approach in paediatric health care is important because parents are involved in making key decisions about their child’s health care and advocating for the best interest of the child. Parents and family members are increasingly turning to the internet to find and actively share information about their child’s health care. Twitter is one of many online platforms used by parents of children diagnosed with cancer to share information related to their child’s cancer experience. Existing research suggests that there is a need to better understand the motives for using Twitter for sharing content about a child’s cancer experience. Furthermore, there is a lack of theoretical frameworks for characterizing those motives. In this paper, we identify key themes of tweets posted by parents of children diagnosed with cancer and align those themes with motives inspired by the well-studied Everyday Life Information Seeking framework. We propose a new motive in addition to those associated with the framework and suggest that information can be shared for endogenous reasons as well as to meet the needs of others. This paper contributes an increased understanding of motives for sharing information about a child’s cancer journey and extends a theoretical framework for building further knowledge in this area.

ASPECTS OF EVERYDAY LIFE IN THE OLD-BULGARIAN HAGIOGRAPHICAL CYCLE OF STORIES ATALE OF THE IRON CROSS

The hagiographical cycle of stories – А Tale of the Iron Cross is relatively well-known, but as a source of information for everyday life it still has not been studied properly. Such a factis somewhat surprising. Even a glimpse at Tale’s texts gives an opportunity many questionable aspects of daily life to be shown. A serious look at the cycle’s data is very fruitful. There are some important descriptions of clothes, foodstuff, drinks consummation as well as craft activities. Moreover, records concerning various types of illnesses, reasons of health disorder and treatment skills also can be observed. At the same time the importance of those features increases when scholars take into consideration the historical database which left unknown many sides of daily life in the dawn of so-called Slavia Orthodoxa

Research in Information Science Award: Everyday Life Information Seeking

EDITOR'S SUMMARYReijo Savolainen, 2016 recipient of the ASIS&T Research in Information Science Award, observes that research on information behavior tends to be skewed more heavily toward the context of the workplace, but focusing on everyday life information seeking (ELIS) brings information behavior into the sphere of ordinary life. Using Brenda Dervin's sense‐making methodology, research on ELIS can illuminate information seeking behavior for individuals in many different fields and circles. Qualitative study results from environmental activists, home buyers and unemployed individuals reveal how these groups seek information to help solve everyday problems. These studies highlight the use of information source horizons and preferred information seeking paths of individuals, showing patterns in how far people search for information and where they prefer to begin and end their searches. While social media provided useful information in these contexts, the information was often clouded behind affective factors when dealing with sensitive or controversial topics and thus were not always reliable or accessible to all.

International Students’ Information Needs and Seeking Behaviours throughout the Settlement Stages

AbstractFor international students who need to settle down to new environments, the information they use in their everyday life plays an important role. This study is aimed at understanding international students’ information needs and information-seeking behaviours within their campus and everyday life, throughout the settlement stages. An interview survey, which asked about international students’ information behaviours for critical incidents during three settlement stages, was conducted. At the pre-arrival and settlement stages, most of the international students’ information needs were related to their daily rather than their academic or campus life, and people (relatives/friends) in the United States and the Internet were their main sources of information. As they began to settle down, their information needs and sources of information became diverse; social media use was especially noticeable after they settled down. At the pre-arrival stage, their information needs were broad, and their satisfaction with Internet search experiences was relatively low. However, as they settled down in the United States, their information needs became specific, and they felt more confident with search experiences. In order to support international students’ success in meeting academic goals, it seems that it is necessary to provide them with everyday life information that could help them settle down and adjust to a new country.

Exploring the Role of Social Media Platforms in Informing Trip Planning: Case of Yelp.com

Understanding how travelers make mobility decisions has always been central to transportation studies. The growing availability of information and communication technologies in everyday life and their role in conveying more recent, relevant, and customized information have substantially changed the context within which trip decisions are made. Whether travelers are actively seeking pretrip information or merely surfing the web, they have access through social media to user-generated information that may affect their mobility decisions. This study forms an exploratory step in understanding how one such social media platform, Yelp.com, designed to allow users to review and rate their experiences at any visited business, can serve as an information source for activity and trip planning in the pretrip process. In particular, the study explored ( a) the relative depth, ( b) the sentiment associated with, and ( c) the type of information in transport-related reviews on Yelp.com. This research has implications for the study of travel behavior in a highly connected environment and can inform efforts to design information and communication technology tools aimed at affecting behavior.

Everyday Life Information Seeking of International Students in Taiwan

The increasing number of international student enrolled all around the world that leads to the needs of information problem. Different background, social demography, and general information affect the needs of information of international students. The genre of information to be search on the internet and the use of internet in seeking everyday life information take attention of researcher. The research intended to find interrelation between Social demography and general information toward genre of information chosen. This research questions were answered by conducting survey using questionnaire. Online questionnaire is chosen as the method to collect information from international students who are studying in Taiwan. This study finding released that Internet had been used as a primary medium for seeking information and most of the International students are having tendency to search information related to entertainment compare to other genre of everyday life information. In fact, personal interest information which is having important value got a low interest.Keywords: Everyday life information, Social demography, International Students.
 

Australian motor sport enthusiasts’ leisure information behaviour

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the leisure information behaviour of motor sport enthusiasts, examining: their information needs; their information seeking and sharing; what personal information they had; and their satisfaction with their information seeking and personal information management efforts.Design/methodology/approachThis exploratory study examined participants’ information behaviour from a postpositivist and inductive research approach. An online survey was completed by 81 motor sport enthusiasts. The quantitative survey data were analysed using descriptive statistics, whilst the qualitative data were analysed using thematic coding.FindingsThe research findings highlighted that enthusiasts engaged in mixed serious leisure. They required information before, during and after race events, and sought this primarily from online sources, as well as from other individuals. Totally, 90 participants shared information about their interest in motor sport with family, friends and fellow enthusiasts, primarily via e-mails (69 per cent) and Facebook (49 per cent). They also gathered information about motor sport, including photographs and memorabilia. Participants were satisfied with their information management strategies for their personal collections.Research limitations/implicationsParticipants were limited to motor sport enthusiasts in Australia, hence findings cannot be generalised more broadly.Practical implicationsUnderstandings of enthusiasts’ information behaviour provide information management professionals with insights to work with this user community.Originality/valueThis study fills a gap in the literature about leisure information behaviour of motor sport enthusiasts in Australia. It identifies and provides a typology of the 12 categories of information needed by enthusiasts. Provides a preliminary motor sport information behaviour model guided by the conceptual frameworks of the everyday life information seeking model; general models on information behaviour; and the information problem solving behaviour model.

Watching young children “play” with information technology: Everyday life information seeking in the home

Research on how young children use information to orient themselves in daily life and to solve problems (known as everyday life information seeking or ELIS) has not been conducted, in-depth, in information science. This exploratory observation study examines how 15 Australian preschool children (aged three to five) used information technologies in their homes to orient themselves in daily life and to solve problems. Children engaged in various ways with the digital technologies available to them and with parents and siblings during play activities. The results explore the value of artistic play, sociodramatic play, and early literacy and numeracy activities in shaping young children's ‘way of life’ and ‘mastery of life’ as outlined in Savolainen's (1995) ELIS model. Observed technology engagement provided an opportunity to explore children's social worlds and the ways that they gathered information during technology play that will inform future learning activities and support child development. By using ELIS theory as an analytic lens, the results demonstrate how children's developmental play with technology tools helps them to internalize social and cultural norms. The data also point to the type of capital available to children and how that capital contributes to children's emerging information practices.

시민 정보요구 범주화 연구

ABSTRACT In this study, we develop a categorization of citizens’ informa tion problems in their everyday life based on the characteristics in their information seeking behavior for developing information services which support to solve the problems practically. First of all, we ext racted keywords related to their faced everyday life problems from the scripts of open-ended interviews with citizens who had diverse characteristics. The keywords were categorized into 6 groups, such as hobby/recr eation, legal problems, current affairs, education, health, and economic matters, based on the character istics in related information seeking behaviors. Then the 6-group categorization was tested statistic ally with questionnaire survey data based on their prefered information sources. Through the statistical test, the 6-group categorization has proved being valid. Based on the results, we suggested to reconsider t he current information services in public libraries, and discussed a possibility to shift the services to problem-based information services.키워드: 정보요구, 범주화, 시민, 일상정보추구, 정보문제중심Information Needs, Categorization, Citizen, ELIS (Everyday Life Information Seeking), Information Problem-Centered

Mapping the everyday life information needs of Catholic clergy

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to describe the pattern of everyday life information needs of a group of people in an area with limited access to information, and to investigate how the major dimensions of the everyday life information seeking (ELIS) model apply to information needs in the contexts of the Catholic clergy.Design/methodology/approach– The study applied the concurrent triangulation strategy of mixed-methods research. Data from 15 episodic interviews and surveys of 109 Catholic clergy in Northern Nigeria were collected and analyzed.Findings– A map of the everyday life information needs was developed. Three types of everyday life information needs were identified: essential needs; circumstantial needs; and occasional needs. The information needs of these clergy did not fit into the two major dimensions of Savolainen’s ELIS model.Research limitations/implications– The study was conducted only with Catholic clergy serving in the Northern Catholic dioceses of Nigeria.Originality/value– Although the ELIS model has been applied in several studies, not much attention has been given to comparing how the major dimensions of the model apply to information needs of a group of people in a variety of contexts. This study contributes to the ELIS model by pointing to other contextual situations where seeking orienting and practical information may not be sufficient to account for the everyday life information needs of some types of users.

Applying the theory of information worlds within a health care practise in Finland

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to increase understanding about value creation to families in childhood obesity care in multiprofessional collaboration in an integrated care pathway (ICP).Design/methodology/approach– The qualitative case study involves the ICPs of two Finnish University Hospital districts. The empirical data, collected between 2009 and 2012, consists of semi-structured interviews of 30 health professionals in primary and special health care, of three children and their mothers, a family questionnaire (n=13) complemented with care path instructions and memos of an ICP work group.Findings– The findings indicate that organisational culture confirms boundaries which hinder transfer of information and sharing of knowledge between organisations and professional groups. The concepts of Chatman’s theory of everyday life information seeking complemented with the concepts of Burnett’s and Jaeger’s theory of information worlds are applicable to describe aspects of organisational culture on patient value creation in the ICP for obese children.Research limitations/implications– The data of the patients and families were limited. Interviews were completed with a questionnaire which has its limitations in qualitative research. In future studies, e.g., families’ focus-group interviews could bring new insights.Practical implications– The practise of information transfer between Finnish primary and special health care need changes. Modern information technology, e.g., videoconference could be used to increase family involvement in the value creation and the environment should be more supportive for healthy lifestyle.Originality/value– The study is one of the first which empirically applies Chatman’s and Burnett’s and Jaeger’s theories in a work-related setting.