08 November 2017
121 Discovery Sessions in Science
eference specialists in our reading rooms offer 121 discovery sessions which can be booked through our web site at: http://www.bl.uk/reshelp/inrrooms/stp/workshop/workshops.html
We are all aware of the great advantages of digital access and technologies but not the impact on our individual and public health.
A recent example of such a 121 discovery session explored the research topic of the negative psychological and health impact of digital technologies and the aim to understand the emerging trends for the next decades, of this digital and artificial intelligence revolutions on our mental, emotional, social and cultural well-being.
We can advise our researchers on the stages in which they can follow to create literature reviews and manage their projects:
- Formulation of initial research questions. List these and value the questions in their own right and that may not have definitive answers.
- Scoping the areas of interest and defining what is out of remit.
- Getting into the mind set and language discourse of the literature and its authors.
- Using the subject specific language terms to search the relevant databases and catalogues.
- Developing a search strategy and limits e.g. last 10 years, country focus, population group, material type
- Browse e-resources and iteratively refine search terms to re-input into another cycle of database interrogation
The examples given by our researcher of the psychological and behavioural impact of digital technologies induced phenomena that can create mental health issues include:
- Depersonalisation and objectification
- Online trolling and abuse
- The selfie syndrome and online body perception issues
- Online sexual grooming and predation
- Rise of Internet junkies, surfers spending up to and more than 6 hours a day online
- Withdrawal into digital fantasy worlds, are we creating the mental space cadets of the future? What impact does violence online have off-line?
- Online digital addictions e.g. online gaming and gambling
- Enhanced social phobias: anxieties around and breakdown of human to human communication and reliance on the intermediation of digital communication technologies
- Digital exclusion/inclusion and equality issues
We aim to encourage our researchers to ask these key that can challenge and change our future thinking and lifestyles. Simon Baron-Cohen, in “Zero degrees of empathy : a new theory of human cruelty, questions where are we going as human beings in our era of technological materialism. What impact is this having on our psyche?
The British Library offers a wealth of resources, both in print as books and online in terms of e-resources for researchers of technology trends and their future directions. How can these risk factors be mapped, evaluated and what interventions devised to ensure digital content and tools support our notions of health and remain our servants and not our masters? Some of these issues are explored in “Irresistible : why we can’t stop checking, scrolling, clicking and watching by Adam Alter, 2017 available in the library collections.
What are the emerging pathologies from these digital technologies and what do the technology utopians, doomers and ludites say about the pros and cons of our current digital revolution? This is a very multi-disciplinary area of research encompassing medicine, mental and psychological health, social science, economics, business and cultural shifts. Our range of e-resources can open windows into these areas of knowledge through our e-resource directory to be found at:
Recommended databases include: SCOPUS, WEB of Science, PsychInfo and PsychExtrat, PILOTS, Medline and PubMed, ASSIA (Applied Social Science Index and Abstracts), Sociological Abstracts, Business Source Complete, ABI Inform Global, Business and Industry (Gale), Management and Business Studies Portal etc. Most need to be used onsite, a few are free offsite.
Our challenge is to learn lessons from the past and try and predict the pitfalls ahead as we move rapidly from the first industrial revolution in Britain to the global information technology, digital Internet based revolutions of bits, bytes, robots and artificial intelligence.
Paul Allchin,
Reference specialist, science