The document discusses the impact of stress on socio-technical systems, focusing on individuals' interactions and contributions within these systems under pressure. It features concepts like allostatic load, recovery, and misinformation, emphasizing the dynamics of communication in platforms like Wikipedia and Twitter. The author proposes utilizing social ties for better sensemaking and managing disturbances in behavior during media events.

1. Socio-Technical
Systems Under Stress
Brian C. Keegan, Ph.D.
Research Associate, Harvard Business School & HBX
December 3, 2014
Human-Computer Interaction Institute, Carnegie Mellon
University
1

2. I am a…
computational social scientist
who
uses network analysis methods
to study
socio-technical systems under
stress
2

3. I am a…
computational social scientist
who
uses network analysis methods
to study
socio-technical systems under
stress
3

4. pressure or tension exerted on a
material object
4

5. a state of mental or emotional strain
resulting from adverse circumstances
5

6. allostasis:
maintaining stability through change
6
McEwin & Wingfield, 2010

7. allostatic load:
capacity to hand demands of routine tasks
7

8. allostatic overload:
task demands exceed capacity for change
8

9. 9
Barro, 2005

10. 10
Sornette & Crane, 2008

11. 11

12. 12

13. unstable stable
beliefs
goals
motivations
interactions
organizations
roles
resources
rules
tasks
13

14. 14

15. “An unusual routine is a recurrent
interaction pattern in which a system
allows a process, which creates and
reinforces, through dysfunctional
feedback, unintended outcomes.”
15

16. “An unusual routine is a recurrent
interaction pattern in which a system
allows a process, which creates and
reinforces, through dysfunctional
feedback, unintended outcomes.”
16

17. functional
dysfunctional
beliefs
goals
motivations
interactions
organizations
roles
resources
rules
tasks
17

18. functional
unstable stable
dysfunctional
good
slow
bad
fast
18

19. functional
unstable stable
dysfunctional 19

20. functional
Wikipedia
unstable stable
4chan
dysfunctional
Reddit
News Comments
Twitter
Facebook
Second Life MOOCs
20

21. What happens to these socio-technical
systems under stress?
21

22. functional
Wikipedia
unstable stable
dysfunctional
22

23. functional
Wikipedia
unstable stable
dysfunctional
23

24. functional
unstable stable
dysfunctional 24

25. How do socio-technical systems
change under stress? 25

26. And if they are overloaded, how do
they recover or fail?
26

27. 27

28. 28

29. 29

30. 30

31. 31
Post-mortem revisions have sudden onset,
large magnitude, and temporary duration

32. Most users making these changes are “new”
editors, but “old” editors return on death date
32

33. Wide differentiation in contribution patterns
across users making post-mortem revisions
33

34. functional
Wikipedia
unstable stable
Recruiting expertise across domains to
support transition and recovery work
dysfunctional 34

35. 35

36. 36
Audience members are mutually aware of
each other’s attention to a media event

37. Information sharing optimal under conditions
37
of low feedback and high parallelism
Dennis & Valacich, 1999; Dennis, Fuller, & Valachich, 2008

38. More shared attention
38

39. Shared attention to media events leads to
less interpersonal behavior
39

40. Reply in-degree Retweet in-degree
Shared attention exaggerates already
concentrated communicative behavior
40

41. 41
These disruptions in large-scale behavior
are significant but temporary

42. functional
unstable stable
Temporary support for exuberant parallelism
and concentrated attention
dysfunctional 42
Twitter

43. 43

44. 44

45. 45

46. Snopee
Snoper
46

47. Persistence of belief in misinformation
despite de-biasing interventions
47
Nyhan & Reifler, 2010; Garrrett, 2011; Ecker, Lewandowsky, & Tang, 2010

48. Embarrassment and conformity should
make friends’ fact checks more effective
48
Foster 2004; DiFonzo & Bordia, 2007; Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004; Garrett, et al., 2013

49. 422 snoping events
267 snoping events
51 snoping events
733 snoping events
50

50. Mentioned After Not Mentioned After
Follower 2.9% 97.1%
Friend 12.0% 88.0%
Stranger 4.2% 95.8%
χ2 = 21.05; df = 1; p < .001
Snopes by friends create 3x more replies by
the snopee than other relationship types
51

51. Challenging snopes
Follower 73.9%
Friend 65.8%
Stranger 85.0%
χ2 = 11.39; df = 1; p < .001
52
Most stranger snopes are challenges, but
fewer snopes from friends are challenges

52. functional
unstable stable
Social ties can be used as a check on
dysfunctional sensemaking
dysfunctional 53
Twitter

53. Recruiting expertise across domains
Support for temporary exuberance
54
to support transition work
and synchronized attention
Employ social ties used for
sensemaking to regulate behavior

54. New media have capability for supporting
55
large-scale synchronous activity

55. 56
Selecting on dependent variable by
analyzing systems that can recover
Barro, 2005

56. 57
Ability to accommodate temporary
changes to media characteristics

57. 58
Adapting theories of allostasis to
socio-technical settings and processes

58. 59
Stressors, mediators, reactions,
recovery, acclimation, dependence

59. 60
Ethics of engineering disruptions for
behavioral change

60. Non-equilibrium communities important
61
feature in emerging HCI domains

61. Thank you!
www.brianckeegan.com
@bkeegan
github.com/brianckeegan
62
CMU HCII for invitation
Co-authors: Jed Brubaker (UC Irvine), Yu-Ru Lin (Pitt), Drew
Margolin (Cornell), Ancsa Hannak (NEU), Ingmar Weber (QCRI),
David Lazer (NEU),
Darren Gergle (NU), Noshir Contractor (NU)
CSCW DC 2012, iConference DC 2012, DSST Workshop 2013,
Berkman Cooperation Reading Group