UDIT researcher Bárbara Castillo Abdul warns of digital fatigue: "Cultural consumption is increasingly ephemeral and competitive".
On the occasion of World Social Media Day, Bárbara Castillo Abdul Hadi, senior researcher at GITDCom at the University of Design, Innovation and Technology (UDIT), warns, based on the analysis of RTVE, about the "use and throw away" in digital networks and the risks of superficial communication.
On the occasion of World Social Media Day, teacher and researcher Bárbara Castillo Abdul was asked by RTVE to analyse the "throwaway" cycle on digital platforms. In the report entitled "The rise and fall of social networks: human communication at the service of throwaway cycles", Castillo Abdul points out that the phenomenon is explained by "increasingly ephemeral and competitive cultural consumption", which contributes to the volatility of digital environments.
She also stresses that this volatility "responds to an increasingly ephemeral, competitive and fragmented cultural consumption", which generates instability in both platforms and audiences. The researcher also expresses her concern about the growing digital saturation: "the overexposure of information, combined with the algorithmic logic of constant attention, is generating digital fatigue, anxiety and demotivation".
In his final diagnosis, Castillo Abdul underlines the symbolic impact this cycle has on our digital identity: "we live surrounded by platforms designed to be ephemeral or volatile, where our identity fragments and fades". This observation highlights the challenge not only technical, but emotional, of losing traces, links and meanings in the digital space.
As a senior researcher in the Digital Innovation and Transformation of Communication Group(GITDCom) at UDIT, Castillo Abdul is actively working on strategies to reverse these effects: promoting lasting communication, strengthening digital communities and ensuring that online identity retains coherence and memory.
