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Editor's Notes

• #2:  ”Positive Computing: Technologies for psychological wellbeing and human potential" Abstract Digital technologies have made their way into all the aspects of our lives that, according to psychology, influence our wellbeing -- everything from social relationships and curiosity to engagement and learning. By bringing together research and methodologies well-established in psychology, education, neuroscience and human-computer interaction, we can begin to cultivate a new field dedicated to the design and development of technology that supports wellbeing and human potential. More specifically, in this seminar I will present an introduction to our Human-Computer interaction work aiming to support psychological wellbeing. The suggested HCI framework builds on psychology, education, design and other disciplines addressing intrapersonal factors of wellbeing such as motivation, engagement, reflective thought and mindfulness, interpersonal factors such as empathy, and extrapersonal such as altruism. For more information visit positivecomputing.org Rafael Calvo is Professor at the University of Sydney. He has taught at several Universities, high schools and professional training institutions. He worked at the Language Technology Institute in Carnegie Mellon University, Universidad Nacional de Rosario (Argentina) and on sabbaticals at the University of Cambridge and the University of Memphis. Rafael also has worked as an Internet consultant for projects in the US, Australia, Brasil, and Argentina. Rafael is the recipient of 5 teaching awards for his work on learning technologies, and the author of two books and many publications in the fields of learning technologies, affective computing and computational intelligence. Rafael is Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Learning Technologies and of IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing and Senior Member of IEEE. Rafael is Editor of the Oxford Handbook of Affective Computing. “Positive Computing” (MIT Press) with Dorian Peters is coming out this October. For more information visit: rafael-calvo.com
• #3: The University of Sydney, the first in Australia, was founded in 1850. It now has 50,200 students and over 7,000 staff Sydney has a long relationship with the beaches and natural beauty throughout Australia But is also known for sports and some iconic buildings like the Opera house, finished in 1973.
• #4: Back then most people in Australian, and everywhere else in the world, were foreign to digital experiences. And digital experiences were limited to the workplace. In the eighties they started touching our home lives through game consoles and then the personal computers.. In the 90s, those clunky mobile phones started becoming cooler and more common and after 2000 they started doing far more than just making phone calls. In just the last five years we’ve seen digital devices become part of almost every aspect of our experience from work and business to exercise, friendships, romance. They are now continuous players in our moment-by-moment lived experience. And according to the promises engineers are making about the future Internet of Things there will be little separation between digital and non-digital experience. But one critical question remains…
• #5: In other words, is all this creativity, investment, energy, carbon emissions delivering with respect to our overall wellbeing?
• #6: Incredibly, according to the statistics, we’re not. Population surveys over the last … years shows that the wealth of nations has increased, and with that of course, so has access to digital devices and experiences, but happiness has not significantly increased. Naturally, as an engineer I had to ask myself, if tech is supposed to make life better, why is the correlation between technology and happiness so poor?
• #7: We’ve spent the last few decades designing for sensible things like Productivity, efficiency, accuracy, speed, performance… and only fairly recently fort things like satisfaction, pleasure and desire. Productivity has always played a starring role. Productivity as a goal is easy to implement easy to measure and digital technology began as a tool for work. But it’s moved well beyond that and the productivity mentality is seeing us track, compare and measure everything from miles run, hours slept to number of times we’ve gotten lucky (I swear there’s an app for that). This has created what we see as a Tyranny of Productivity that makes it all the more difficult to slow down, to pause, to disconnect, to value quality over quantity, to take the time to be curious, or direct full attention to one thing at a time. All things critical to wellbeing.
• #8: In other words, we’ve designed for proxies. We value things like productivity, pleasure, and wealth because we figure they’ll make us happier --more satisfied with life. The problem is we now know that wealth and digital experiences per se are not effective proxies for greater happiness. So we’ve been designing for all these things we believe make life better, but have never *directly* tackled the one thing that really matters
• #9: If we want technology to increase worldwide wellbeing, we have to design for wellbeing directly. In fact, we believe that all technolgy, all digital experience should be designed to support psychological wellbeing. This is what we call Positive computing – the research and development of technolog to support psychological wellbeing and human potential
• #10: But before discussing the measures I would like to give some brief examples of how technology is changing us, and what are the disciplines that can provide theoretical foundations for different measures And finally I will tell you about some of the projects I am currently working on
• #11: We know our brains are adapting to technology. Plenty of research shows how our digital experiences are changing the way we remember, the way we relate to each other and even the ways we understand ourselves. The ubiquity of digital devices means that digital experience has slithered its way into every aspect of our lives that psychologists identify as key influencers to our wellbeing. The relationship is often complex as shown for example in the research on the impact of social networking in people’s lives. Hundreds of papers provide evidence on the positive and negative effects of social networking platforms like Facebook. There are papers suggesting social networks can cause a declines in subjective wellbeing, others have shown how the impact depends on what we do with them, others explored emotional contagion. The most recent and more nuanced studies explore the impact of specific uses of Facebook by different type of people. We can use new tools for understanding the factors that promote wellbeing as in a study by Gilbert and Killingsworth’s published in science that has implications for understanding digital distraction and multitasking. They sampled about 5000 people from 83 different countries who range in age from 18 to 88 and found “1) that people are thinking about what is not happening almost as often as they are thinking about what is and (ii) that doing so typically makes them unhappy.” These massive participant numbers were made possible by smart phones. The importance of designing with wellbeing in mind is highlighted by the impact that design can have on what people do and think. If you thought that was a lot of subjects consider a study published in Nature run through Facebook that included 61 million people. This study showed the power of online social influence on behavior, specifically for mobilizing people to vote.
• #12: As just mentioned new techniques allow us to understand more about users’ experiences. My own research interests reflect some of the topics that have received attention in the Human-Computer Interaction community, and are now increasing the interest on positive computing. The focus over much of this period has been to develop tools that automatically process what people write. One of the cool things about writing is that when you write you are normally thinking about what you are writing. It is very hard to be thinking of something else. Modern technologies, somewhat similar to those that underlie your favorite search engine can be used to automatically process the documents that people write, in real time, while they write. We have built feedback interventions with automated summaries and visualizations that people can use to reflect on what they write.
• #13: One of the most useful ways of helping people learn is to provide feedback, But udnerstanding the impact of these feedback interventions is particularl;y challenging. We have been using behavioral analytics tools and visualizations to understand what forms of feedback are most useful. In this diagram each row represents an individual student writer. The green balls indicate different revisions of a document. If you see many balls it generally indicates the person has spent a lot of time in the activity. The triangles and the squares are two forms of interventions. One is directive where we describe a problem and a solution, and the oterh reflective where we do not tell the writer how to fix the problem. In the diagram you can see how often they write, for how long, if they read and address the feedback. You can use this knowledge to learn about the best most effective intervention and customize it to individual users.
• #14: One of the most useful ways of helping people learn is to provide feedback, But udnerstanding the impact of these feedback interventions is particularl;y challenging. We have been using behavioral analytics tools and visualizations to understand what forms of feedback are most useful. In this diagram each row represents an individual student writer. The green balls indicate different revisions of a document. If you see many balls it generally indicates the person has spent a lot of time in the activity. The triangles and the squares are two forms of interventions. One is directive where we describe a problem and a solution, and the oterh reflective where we do not tell the writer how to fix the problem. In the diagram you can see how often they write, for how long, if they read and address the feedback. You can use this knowledge to learn about the best most effective intervention and customize it to individual users.
• #16: We are studying how this type of emotion detection can be used in medical education helping doctors improve their communication skills when they use tele-health systems. The system can automatically generate a tally of acknowledgment expressions such as shaking and nodding, or emotions like anger, disgust, fear etc. The learner can use this information to reflect on key events during the interaction.
• #17: Other techniques beyond computer vision can be used to detect emotions. We have used physiological sensors as in this study supporting an Intelligent Tutoring Systems. This is a short video showing a Tutoring System on Information technologies. It recognises for example, when the person is engaged, bored or frustrated. The different emotions can then be used to adapt the system. If the person is bored you can raise the difficulty of the questions. If he is stressed you can provide extra explanations.
• #18: If we have the ability to use technology to better understand the impact of it on cognition, on affect and on behaviour, couldn’t we turn this to psychological wellbeing?
• #19: Where do we begin identifying research foundations for a field in positive computing.
• #20: Many areas that can contribute to a) our understanding of wellbeing and how to apply it to technology. PosComp is necessarily multidisciplinary. Currently we see relevance in the following fields.
• #21: The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and the Center for Epidemiological Studies depression scale are probably the most commonly used scales to measure depression and in this clinical model, lack of depression means wellbeing. The scales are considered so reliable that insurance companies are willing to pay for treatment when you have too high a score Positive psychology is a movement that arose from critics to the clinical model including Martin Seligman who was then President of the APA. It focuses on looking for the factors that best identify those who are flourishing, at the top of the wellbeing scales, and in studying how those factors could be promoted. Some of these factors include those in emotional intelligence: accurate conscious perception and monitoring of one’s own emotions; modification of our emotions so that their expression is appropriate; accurate recognition of and response to emotions in others; skill in negotiating close relationships with others; capacity for focusing emotions (motivation) toward a desired goal Other psychologist like Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman, or Diener have focused on techniques where people is asked directly about their experiences of being well, and this is taken as wellbeing. Self-reports are known not to be terribly accurate so they have used Experience sampling and other techniques and shown that the averages over time are accurate and valid measures. Neuroscientists have explored for example how some of this factors are represented on the brain. Richard Davidson’s work on the transformative power of mindfulness training is one example. As part of making sure we were capturing the depth of research in this theoretical models we invited experts to write 1-2 pages about their perspectives on how their research could inform technology design, and were lucky that they agreed. This includes Felicia Huppert a psychologist from Cambridge and David Caruso from Yale – one of the founders of the EI movement)
• #22: Economist and policy makers have also been developing, and using, measures of wellbeing They are using population surveys across Europe and individual countries to better understand what policies have an effect on people’s quality of life and wellbeing The World Happiness Report for example describes stats from different countries. In the UK, the government runs population surveys periodically and it is using it to inform policy making. In the US, the Gallup-Healthways provides a daily asssment.
• #24: Of course what we’re talking about here is wellbeing promotion. Many mental Health Professionals are understandably focused on the treatment of disease. However, if we’re going to recruit the design of all technologies to support optimal mental health across the population than we have to use models of wellbeing promotion. Felicia Huppert, director of the Cambridge Wellbeing Inst has put it elegantly. By showing how promotion can shift the mean across the population of the mental health spectrum. Embedded promotion could prevent more people from moving into languishing or disorder and increase the number of people who are thriving. This is where everyday technologies can have the most impact.
• #25: These are some of the determinant factors. Many of which we examine in greater detail in our book. Their causal impact on wellbeing is supported by significant research and there are already examples of technologies aiming to foster them. Of course it’s not enough to say, my game or my app produces positive emotions like fun and pleasure so it must be increasing wellbeing. We’ll need to evaluate users on the short and longer term with validated methods to show negative, neutral or positive impact on individual determinants and on overall psychological wellbeing.
• #26: For example, Positive emotions are probably the most easily identified and acknowledged in design. Digital designers frequently talk about things like “delight”, “pleasure” and fun to describe their aspirations. However, in general, this has been based on the simple idea that giving people good experiences with your technology will bring them back, sell more products, or facilitate whatever other goal that drives the project. People have not been supporting positive emotions with design in order to increase wellbeing. One exception is Game Designer Jane McGonigal. She points to the ability of games to produce positive emotion as one reason that we should be turning to games as solutions to large social problems as well as personal change. The Young and Well CRC report provides a nice detail review about the positive impact of games.
• #28: If we take for example the model of emotion regulation systems used by compassion-focused therapy we can look at two basic distinctions.
• #29: As most of you will already know, positive emotions are not created equal. We often think of sensual pleasures as different to eudaimonic factors like meaning and engagement. At a more basic level Neuroscience has given evidence that we have at least two separate positive emotion regulation systems. One which is probably dopaminergic that is about striving, it drives us toward acheivement, status and success – it’s how we get so much done in a day. But according to research in psychology and genomics its not the system that is so good for our health, our longeivity our immune system. For that, we need to turn to those positive emotions we have evolved to help us bond and connect better with others. This affiliative system is associated with contentment, cam, compassion, caring and warm feelings of safety. It is self-soothing. Well, if we were to think about where our daily technology mediated activities fall, between checking our email and playing first person shooeters it’s like we’re bathed in dopamine. Technology, like so much of our society has spent the last few decades working towards better striving. Engineers value productivity, efficiency, achievements. Gamification is all about rewards, acheivement, striving and status. Opportunities for affiliative positive emotions are fewer and far between and not as explicity valued or designed for, but they are there, often appearing without being explicitly designed.
• #30: So We’re really REALLY good at this kind of positive emotion. But that isn’t because technology is only capable of supporting this,
• #31: Take this accidental moment of affiliative experience. At the face of it, this is a game of chess. Easily placed in the striving achievment category. But there’s another layer here. This game of chess was being played by a 7 year olld grandson with his 75 year old grandfather and they were about 10,000 miles apart on the globe. This app and two tablets allowed them to interact together in some way. That might have been thoroughly limited interaction but this app allows players to chat with each other in a window. Through the course of the game playful chatting back and forth finally lead to truly meaningful affiliative conversation. Including, did you know you’re my favorite grandson? “yes, you too. And even an eventual “I love you” that never would have been spoken in person or face-to-face. But this example wasn’t especially designed for. I want to share a few examples that were a bit more consciously shaped.
• #32: Technologies allow us to communicate with others over distances but this remoteness can lead to a loss of social cues that help us empathize. Fortunately technology can also be used to develop empathy. At the low-tech level, just deciding to add human photographs to a digital environment can make a difference. At the higher tech level, games are being used to allow people to role-play and experience different sides of things. For example peacemaker game allows players to play both sides of the Israeli Palestinian conflict. There’s a game where you take the role of a refugee fleeing Africa to Europe. And a few years ago, a virtual clinic was created in Second Life that allowed players to experience firsthand some of the symptoms of psychosis such as hallucinations.
• #33: How about this. One of these expresses gratitude – small wording changes can make a significant difference.
• #34: Analysis the impact on wellbeing can raise our awareness of a different type of tradeoffs For example, it is well known that expressions of gratitude, wishing well or admiration are of great value. Obviously for the one receiving it, but also for the person expressing it. In our race for usability and productivity sometimes we miss opportunities. For example, the LinkedIn endorsements have optimised the process so much that it is TOO easy. It takes so little effort that people will endorse others for random things. I have been endorsed for Microsoft Word, for example! This has no meaning, neither for the one who expresses it or for the recipient. In fact I would argue it is not even helping LinkedIn collect good quality data about what people is good at. Yammer, does a lot better with their praise functionality. The tradeoff is balanced more to promote meaningful connections.
• #37: our threat systems are relentlessly triggered by the media and people have begun to respond by “hacking” their news environment. That is they seek out the good stories and the soothing media to balance out this situation. So while the TV news blasts atrocities repeatedly, people are increasingly chosing to turn to online sources like youTube and BuzzFeed to be updated where they can easily find those amazing “man saves 5 bear cubs” videos or this one, Glen James “homeless man returns 50,000stories or even the requisite cat videos. We can laugh at the appeal of lil’ bub but what says safe, affectionate and content better than a dwarf cat.
• #38: Now my final example may seem a little bit contradictory. And let me be clear, I don't think playing a zombie apocolypse game could ever possibly make you feel safe and soothed but it's worth noting that you can find inspiration in just about anything if you keep your mind open ;) what I find interesting about graphic narrative games like the walking dead are how even within this context, pro-sociality can be actively valued in the game. Believe it or not, outside of the occasional zombie attack, it’s actually socio-emotional consequences are the core challenge in this game.
• #39: In a recent article called compassion vs. empathy: designing for resilience” we look at the work on compassion as resilient and how that’s different from empathic distress and then speculate, based on this work, about how we might begin to design for that resilient compassion. We suggest adressing appraisals of deservedness. If you’re designing to help people gain a deeper understanding of each other’s humanity you may need to help bust some myths. Supporting feelnigs of agnecy. A sense of competence and autonomy or core components of psychological wellbeing, and therefore supporting a feeling of empowerment in the face of circumstances that may otherwise make you feel helpless should help facilitate action-oriented compassion vs. the burnout or breakdown of distress
• #40: Prosocial Games have also been shown to increase proscocial behavior. Most recently Jeremey Bailenson and his team from Stanford created a virtual reality experience that resulted in increases of alturistic behavior after the intervention. This is a dedicated intervention, specially built to promote altruism.
• #41: I want to briefly show you some of the ways that technologies are already being used to support wellbeing and where this might lead us in future.
• #42: We have also found it necessary to have a way of differentiating or organizing different levels to which technology can be designed to support wellbeing. For example, many of the examples we have given are technologies dedicated to wellbeing exclusively, but our larger vision sees the inclusion of wellbeing as a design consideration into the design of all technology. Therefore, we have developed this table as a way of better understanding and communicating the various ways in which design for wellbeing can be incorporated into digital experiences. At the first level…
• #43: In developing this initial framework, we have been particularly sensitive to the fact that a field in Positve Computing should be as supportive of practitioners and developers as it is of research and researchers. Drawing from various frameworks in psychology and developing a structure amenable to both practice and research, We have selected to break a rather large problem down into actionable chunks. ..
• #45: Our project with the Young and Well Cooperative research Centre, Moderator Assist, seeks to help moderators of mental health forums. These moderators spend countless hours reading through posts to support groups responding to questions, providing help and looking for warning signs of danger, We want to help make their job more manageable and rewarding,… One of the problems we are helping them with is to manage their large online communities. Online peer support groups can have thousands of people asking for help at any point in time. This is a challenge for the moderators of such communities. As the practical aspect of this project we are building tools that generate automated interventions from the text that people post in these communities The different interventions follow different psychological models, such as CBT, positive psychology and informational. What positive computing approach brings to this project is that we are also considering the wellbeing of the moderators, specifically we can support their sense of meaning and resilience. When the human moderator click submit the intervention is sent to the user or posted on the forums where the question was asked. We can then see if the person engaged in the activity proposed, for example following on a link provided.
• #47: We have been working on two projects, one supporting young people with Diabetes type I and Cystic Fibrosis and a another one for Young People people with Asthma In both cases the user group is adolescents transitioning from pediatric care to adult care. From the positive computing angle what we are trying to do is support tehir Autonomy, or what medical professionals refer to as self-management of the disease.
• #48: This project we are staring this year is about
• #50: We have been running what we sometimes call Happy Camper workshops with a number of organizations and the have found them most useful to start thinking of new the tradeoffs and perspectives around 6 factors. ….