The Digital Abyss: Exploring Escapism Through Digital Browsing
Role: Solo User Experience Researcher
Class Project
Context & Background📱
We have all engaged with digital browsing as a form of leisure. Some of us do it when we shouldn't. Some of us spend an hour on the toilet toiling about eBay and the endless abyss of Instagram Reels. Others spend the last few hours of their night dedicated to browsing on their phones.
I aimed to understand the processes and rituals here; is digital browsing a form of escapism, and if so does it provide a successful escape
I recruited two volunteers who would be comfortable with the observation of their digital interactions. The research spanned several sessions adding up to around 10 hours of fieldwork.
In the context of this study, digital decompression is defined as the digital interactions users engage in to "relax" between tasks.
Note: Two hours were spent observing participant 1, while eight hours were spent observing participant 2. Fewer participants were recruited to enable more time to catch participants engaging in the act of "digital decompression," as well as to build comfort and build rapport with the participants.
Objectives
The objective of this study was to understand the process and time constraints around digital browsing as a form of escapism, leisure and decompression. The questions I aimed to answer were:
How does one know when it is time to begin decompression, and when it is time to be done browsing?
Do digitized forms of leisure create additional stress or worry, or do they help calm?
What cues do participants create for themselves to digitally engage and disengage?
Time & Place ⏰
Sessions took place in-home, and around areas of task or context transition.
For example:
Transitioning from work to lunch
Transitioning from project to project
Transitioning personal tasks to business-related tasks
Methodology
Observation
Participants were observed in-home.
Think-out-louds
Participants were asked to think out loud while they were decompressing, walking me through their thought process and feeling behind each clicked link and path
Unstructured Interviews &
contextual inquiry
contextual inquiry
Participants were periodically asked about their experiences while decompressing for clarity.
Artifact Reviews
Participants were asked to share their screens and their digital journeys while they were engaging in digital decompression time.
The main methodology behind this study was observation. Observation studies introduce observer bias, and participant interactions may have been affected by an observer's presence. This was mitigated to the best of my ability by building rapport and trusting relationships with my participants. I routinely gained insight into their mental states by inquiring about what they may be feeling at certain points during their interactions.
Key Insights 🔑
Digital decompression mainly feels good at the beginning, but seems to have diminishing returns.
Sometimes digital decompression serves as a way of passively interacting with hobbies and interests.
Digital decompression is a loop that can be hard to break out of.
Digital decompression mainly feels good at the beginning, but seems to have diminishing returns.
Sometimes digital decompression serves as a way of passively interacting with hobbies and interests.
Digital decompression is a loop that can be hard to break out of.
Participants' digital decompression time is often perceived as a productive yet relaxing pastime.
Digital browsing sometimes echoes pacing when people are to make a decision.
Reflection & Learnings
Research is often constricted by time and availability. Due to this study lining up with the holidays, participant availability began to dwindle. In an ideal world, I would have liked to recruit more participants as well as have more time to achieve saturation.
I also found that, in terms of viewing intimate digital interactions such as digital decompression, time must be taken to build a trusting and comfortable relationship with my participants.
Throughout the study I was mindful of the fact that I would not be getting a view of my participants' entire decompression processes as observation bias can't be bypassed in this context.