Woodbrooke, Birmingham
13-15th January 2014

Collection of personally relevant information about one’s
behaviour as a result of which people gain insights into
their own and other people’s habits that can potentially
lead to beneficial attitude and behaviour changes.
(Cox, Fleck & Bird, 2013)
 ACCEPTANCE EPIPHANY
 CHANGE EPIPHANY
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Woodbrooke, Birmingham
13-15th January 2014
DIGITAL EPIPHANIES

Work Package 1
Using Online Surveys to Explore Reflexivity
and WLB Issues Across a Broad Demographic
Dr Rosie Robison
Global Sustainability Institute,
Anglia Ruskin University
Woodbrooke, Birmingham
13-15th January 2014

 Explore, via online surveys, links between:
 Reflexivity;
 self-directed behaviour change and WLB;
 digital practice issues across a broad national sample.
 Test the feasibility of engaging with a broad sample of users in a future project.
 What are people’s (self-reported) levels of reflexivity? Do these correlate with other WLB
issues, such as work-home interference, job control, email stress?
 How commonly do people undertake self-directed behaviour change relating to WLB?
Prompted by what? (cf. “digital epiphanies”) Success rates.
 Can we identify distinct groups who are more or less reflexive, or more or less successful (in
their own eyes) at managing the effects of new technologies on their WLB?
 How does reflexivity affect behaviour change? If it is useful to encourage reflection, how might
this be done better using digital tools?
Woodbrooke, Birmingham
13-15th January 2014
REFLIXIVITY
“ The extent to which we reflect upon and modify our functioning. ”
AIMSKEYQUESTIONS

1. Reflexivity, work-home interference/boundary control, wellbeing, technology use
300 participants, via a web panel
 Key findings: Self-Reflection and Rumination correlate with boundary control;
Boundary Control correlates with Autonomy and Environmental Mastery
New cluster group not identified previously – low boundary control and low work-home interference
Technology qs under analysis currently.
 Outputs: paper in progress… (this is the item I have brought to the retreat)
2. Reflexivity, job control, email stress
138 participants in three groups: academics, accountants, others.
 Key findings: Rumination correlates negatively with Job Control
Insight and Rumination were found to have no significant correlation with Email Overload.
Higher Job Control was associated with lower Email Overload, and higher Satisfaction with Work.
Unlike in other studies, Email Volume did not correlate directly with Email Overload.
 Outputs: Briefing note under review
3. Measuring reflexivity in different ways, active changes which impact on WLB
under construction
Woodbrooke, Birmingham
13-15th January 2014
SURVEYS
Interest in novel survey methods:
Sentence completion
Prompts to encourage reflection

Work Package 2
Work-family Configurations in a Digital Age
Prof Natasha S. Mauthner
Dr Karolina Kazimierczak
Business School
Woodbrooke, Birmingham
13-15th January 2014

 Understanding if and how different digital technologies are
implicated in creating boundaries between work and family
How is technology implicated in:
 Changing the nature and meaning of work and family?
 Generating new ways of doing work and family life?
 Creating new norms and values around work and family?
Woodbrooke, Birmingham
13-15th January 2014KEYQUESTIONS
A theoretical and methodological framework was built, together with a
set of methods to study the technology use in work and family practices
within the home environment, using sensory, visual, mobile and
participatory ethnographic approaches.
AIMS

Family members are invited as collaborators in the research by involving
them in the selection of methods and production of artifacts.
Methods:
 a video tour of the home;
 an interactive floor plan activity;
 researcher- and respondent- generated photographs, films, scrap or smash
books, and diaries;
 individual and family interviews and conversations;
 and walk- and go-alongs using a GoPro as a way of participating in ‘A day in
the life of…’ each family.
Fieldwork visits:
1. video tour and map
2. go-alongs and discussing the materials they have generated;
3. final visit to discuss and agree on data use and management strategies.
Participants:
5 households in North-East Scotland,
with at least one child under the age of 18.
Woodbrooke, Birmingham
13-15th January 2014ON-GOINGRESEARCH

Work Package 3
Roles of Digital Technologies in
Work-Life Balance Systems
Dr Chris Preist
Paul Shabajee
Faculty of Engineering
Woodbrooke, Birmingham
13-15th January 2014

 Understand the current roles of digital technologies:
 their roles in the complex systems that bring about
beneficial/detrimental work-life balance
 noting issues with those terms
 Identify potential 'points of intervention' where digital
technologies may be able to make a 'positive'
contribution
 A key focus is on concrete implications for future
(re-)design of digital goods and services
Woodbrooke, Birmingham
13-15th January 2014
AIMS

 Inter-disciplinary literature review around 'work-life balance‘/life-balance and roles of ICT
at multiple (all) levels:
 from individual traits/psychology, family, workplace, communities, to global trade systems.
 Higher Education focused study into what ‘work-life balance’ means, indicators and consequences,
factors that a play a role and roles (current and potential) of digital technologies
 semi-structured interviews with specialists, practitioners and interested parties with regard to
WLB, (e.g. executive officers/managers, trainers, union officials, staff development/support
staff, and technology service providers, project officers)
 semi-structured interviews with academic/research staff
 Developed e-mail (sent mail) analysis tool – as demonstrator of use of digital systems to extract
and present WLB related behavioural information (for individuals and their networks)
 Wrote a position paper (http://hci.bham.ac.uk/workshops/habit/):
Shabajee, P., & Preist, C. (2013). Digitally Assisted Life-(Im) Balance? British HCI habits workshop.
 Identifying and exploring the ‘unintended consequences’ of how technology impacts on work-life
balance/life-balance
 Outcomes: Analysis is providing sets of generic ‘life-balance’ insights and issues and
examples of (complex) roles of digital technologies in WLB systems, identifying
core problems and dilemmas, ideas for analytical tools, …
Woodbrooke, Birmingham
13-15th January 2014ACTIVITIES

Work Package 4
How can personal informatics support
reflection on digital practices?
Dr Anna Cox
Dr Emily Collins
Marta Cecchinato
UCL Interaction Centre
Woodbrooke, Birmingham
13-15th January 2014

1. SOCIAL NETWORK (Zhou, Bird, Cox, & Brumby, 2013)
Can personal informatics help reduce perceived stress related to social networks?
 Method: daily retrospective estimation of social network usage + objective measure of
usage.
 Results: social network usage did not significantly change, BUT participants’
perceptions were changed: - with a reduction in perceived stress and
- an increase in satisfaction.
2. VIDEO GAMES (Collins, & Cox, 2013)
How can digital games be used to improve recovery and reduce work-related stress?
 Method: Survey (491 participants)
 Results: total number of hours spent playing digital games per week was positively
correlated with overall recovery.
3. TABLET USE (Stawarz, Cox, Bird, & Benedyk, 2013)
Why, how and where do office workers use tablets and what impact might these devices
on work-life balance?
 Method: online questionnaire and qualitative study
 Results: useful for both home and work tasks, BUT potentially blur the boundaries
between work and personal life by encouraging and enabling people to complete
work tasks during home time and vice versa.
Woodbrooke, Birmingham
13-15th January 2014RESEARCH

4. EMAIL HABITS (Brumby, Cox, & Bird, 2013)
What are the effects of a once-a-day checking strategy, as opposed to frequent
checking strategy?
 Results:
 Participants who adopted the once-a-day strategy made fewer visits to
email applications and, as expected, their sessions lasted significantly
longer.
 The overall time spent in one’s inbox when adopting a once-a-day strategy
is (not significantly) lower than frequent checking strategy.
 Effects of certain activities performed when commuting on work-life
balance: would they help strengthen the boundaries or blur them,
making it more difficult for people to relax?
 Email prioritizing strategies by measuring response times
 Can email behaviours be changed by adopting some personalized
tools that can potentially help users mange their inbox more
effectively?
Woodbrooke, Birmingham
13-15th January 2014RESEARCHFUTUREWORK

Digital Epiphanies Blog
http://www.digitalepiphanies.org/blog.html
Woodbrooke, Birmingham
13-15th January 2014
Image source: http://www.thejobcrowd.com/news/who-are-best-employers-work-life-balance