Technology Habits: Progress, Problems, and Prospects
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Postprint The Psychology of Habit CITATION Bayer, J. B., & LaRose, R. (2018). Technology Habits: Progress, Problems, and Prospects. In B. Verplanken (Ed.), The Psychology of Habit: Theory, Mechanisms, Change, and Contexts (pp. 111-130). Cham: Springer. Version of Record available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97529-0_7 Technology Habits: Progress, Problems, and Prospects Joseph B. Bayer Robert LaRose The Ohio State University Michigan State University Technology habits have been objects of research for over 100 years and provided heuristic cases for the study of habits over the last two decades. This chapter traces the history of research on information and communication technologies in daily life, with an eye toward measurement and conceptualization problems. Similar to the new technologies of earlier eras, the prominence of current habitual manifestations has raised challenging questions for both researchers and societies. These new-er media habits may exaggerate core habit- ual mechanisms by providing a wide spectrum of potential cues, possible contexts, and complex rewards—resulting in dynamic habits that appear to be “special”. We discuss how research on technology habits serves to uncover the assumptions, boundaries, and moderators of habit, while calling for a revised approach to address recurring problems in the literature. Altogether, the chapter clarifies how technology habit research contributes to a broader understanding of habitual behaviour. Keywords Internet, Online, Smartphone, Digital, Addiction, Components, Cues, Contexts At the turn of the twentieth century, an early graphic operators in the twentieth century. study on telegraphic habits appeared in Sure, the physical keys and symbols are Psychological Review (Bryan & Harter, 1899). different, the individual goals and man- This long-forgotten article demonstrated oeuvres are different, and the surrounding how mastery of the telegraph depended on a contexts and cultures are different. Yet the hierarchal set of habits. And in some ways, habits of grouping automatically selecting not all that much has changed. The habits keys to represent letters, combining co- associated with QWERTY keyboards re- occurring letters into words, and words into placed the core processes found among tele- phrases, endure. Corresponding author: Joseph B. Bayer [[email protected]] Bayer & LaRose Technology Habits So, what is the contribution of technology media, including Internet, electronic, device, habit research then? This chapter reviews the gaming, virtual, online, interactive, mobile, history of research on technology habits in digital, network, and information and comm- the fields of communication studies and unication technologies (ICT) habits (LaRose, information systems, while also reflecting on 2010a; Limayem & Hirt, 2003). Increasingly, the role of emergent technologies for habit and owing perhaps to the convergence of research at large. Along the way, we trace traditional mass interpersonal communica- how issues of measurement and conceptual- tion systems (Walther & Valkenburg, 2017), ization both challenge and advance the “technology” is used as a catchall term (e.g. identification of replicable factors that ex- Clements & Boyle, 2018; Kuss & Billieux, plain technology habit mechanisms, ante- 2017). Of course, if we understand “tech- cedents, and consequences. In doing so, we nology” to be literally “the study of tech- discuss how technology habits repeatedly nique”, then transportation mode, health, appear special, and often addiction-like, by and exercise habits that are said to dominate modulating core habitual processes. Re- habit research (Orbell & Verplanken, 2015) sponding to the above question, we suggest might also be termed technology habits. In that studying technology habits helps to spite of this caveat, we adopt the term “tech elucidate the assumptions, boundaries, and habits” here to avoid further fragmentation moderators of habitual behaviour more while reflecting on the state of research broadly. progress, with a special emphasis on every- day innovations examined in the fields of What are Tech Habits? communication and information systems. One of the cyclical challenges in studying A Short History: Progress in Tech technology habits is the question of how to Habit Research define them, as well as how to describe the set of qualifying behaviours. In the years since Even before the popularization of the Inter- the first study of telegraph habits, research- net and the renaissance of habit research in ers have directed attention to habits across a social psychology in the 1990s, habits were a range of technological innovations. Do bi- topic of interest in information systems cycle habits represent a technology habit? (Limayem & Hirt, 2003) and communication Probably not in the contemporary sense, but studies (LaRose, 2010a, 2015). Within comm- maybe they should: transportation modes unication research, for instance, habit re- such as stage coaches were synonymous with search can be traced to a single item in “communication” before the invention of the Rubin’s (1984) “ritual gratifications” measure telegraph (DeLuca, 2011). Alternatively, bike- (“It’s just a habit”) that was a predictor of share app usage is likely to be seen as a television use. However, the gratifications technology habit today, exhibiting how examined in such work are defined to be “technology” focuses not only on the physical actively and consciously processed, so habits object itself but also on the ways in which it is cannot be gratifications (LaRose, 2010a). applied. Nonetheless, from a more historical As scholarly attention turned from the perspective, these innovations are no more television to the Internet, habits were found technological, or even necessarily social, to be significant predictors of diverse pat- than old-fashioned bicycles. terns of online behaviour, including general Over the last two decades, a myriad of Internet use, online shopping, downloading keywords have been applied to organize the media files, social networking, and online everyday habits associated with emergent news consumption. Similar to social psych- Bayer & LaRose Technology Habits ology research that verified the explanatory ance, price value, and hedonic outcomes). power of habits within the Theory of Planned Likewise, social norms are addressed Behavior (TPB), habits were pitted against through perceived social support for system competing variables emphasizing reflective use, and perceived behavioural control is thought processes and explained more var- accounted for through facilitating cond- iance in Internet usage than consciously itions and ease of use. Notably, habits are processed outcome expectations or grat- conceptualized on the same level as the TPB- ifications alone (see LaRose, 2010a). Although derived concepts, with past work demon- most of these studies relied on correlational strating their capacity to explain both intent- designs, some experimental work has offered ions and later information system use. evidence of a causal relationship between Together, the value of habit perspectives habits and tech usage (Tokunaga, 2013). has been established in multiple areas of Along a similar timeline, addiction arose research on emergent technologies over the as a rival explanation for frequent use of last two decades. Concurrent efforts have online tech. However, many addiction stud- integrated habit research in communication ies sampled normal populations, leading to with developments in social psychology, separate (but clearly overlapping) lines of information systems, and neuroscience inquiry on tech habits. In response, LaRose (LaRose, 2010a, 2010b, 2015). This synthesis (2010a, 2010b) proposed that so-called addict- included a variety of psychological studies ive uses among normal users were the result that employed media habits as focal of deficient self-regulation. The deficient behaviours (e.g. Verplanken & Orbell, 2003) self-regulation model of media habits re- and demonstrated the pervasiveness of ceived support in a meta-analysis against a media habits in daily life (e.g. Wood, Quinn, rival model of “problematic” Internet use & Kashy, 2002). Hence, from the telegraph to (Tokunaga & Rains, 2010) and remains a the television to the computer, technology viable explanation (Tokunaga, 2017). Despite habits have long operated as key heuristic the potential misnomer, tech addictions can cases for the study of habitual behaviour. also be interpreted through habitual neural mechanisms (Smith & Graybiel, 2016), and Measurement Challenges thereby aid in our understanding of (neg- ative) habits. Consequently, this chapter re- As in other literatures, technology research engages with the addiction perspective, but rewards innovators of novel pursuits, even as only as applied to normal populations (see publication delays and overlooked develop- also LaRose, 2010b). ments in allied areas lead to redundancy. Parallel developments in the information This is especially so when researchers re- systems literature, beginning with Limayem spond to the latest technological innovations and Hirt (2003), found that habits were more and social trends. Accordingly, technology powerful predictors of technology usage than habit research was already well under way in reflective influences (e.g. derived from the both communication and information sys- Theory of Planned Behavior; TPB). Habits tems prior to the publication of the Self- were later included in what is now a Report Habit Index (SRHI;