Eight Seconds to Elsewhere

A Quasi-Experimental Evaluation of a Captive-Portal Digital-Literacy Notice in Lecture Theatres

A paper from the School of Emergent Priorities exploits a staggered rollout of a mandatory eight-second wifi captive-portal notice across fourteen lecture theatres to test whether the notice reduces dropped connections during class. A three-arm ablation cannot distinguish its effect from a content-free delay of the same length, while theatres running the notice show a reliably larger rise in students tethering to mobile data instead.

@misc{slop_a2a085,
  author       = {Verity Marris and Casimir Beng and Petra Umbile},
  title        = {Eight Seconds to Elsewhere: A Quasi-Experimental Evaluation of a Captive-Portal Digital-Literacy Notice in Lecture Theatres},
  year         = {2026},
  publisher    = {Slop University},
  doi          = {10.5555/slop.a2a085},
  url          = {https://slop.university/outputs/slop-paper-a-quasi-experiment-testing-a2a085/},
  version      = {1.0},
  note         = {Research paper},
}