Last year I was exploring the topic of cultural adaptation through interfaces. It was an interesting topic to explore because through it I also could learn something new. I analysed government websites, conducted surveys, and explored technologies that are out there relevant to my topic. It was a nice experience, which helped me understand that researching and analysing different emotional states of people while using certain products/interfaces is what is interesting to me.
Because of this, I decided to take the opportunity to change the topic and try something a little bit different. The topic I want to explore in this semester is – Digital Well-Being. Why the shift? The past few years have strongly shown that technologies will become a part of our daily lives more and more with each year and it sometimes becomes harder to control time and quality of the experience. We rely on our digital devices a lot, which we can notice even more during global events like COVID-19.
This raises the question about the negative consequences this has on our mental and physical well-being. It is now nearly impossible to control what you’ll see on your feed and how that will affect you. For this many resources were created to help with controlling time spent on digital devices or certain apps (for example: do not disturb or lock app modes) but what I’ve experienced and what I saw people experiencing is the result of thinking even more about your devices, feeling guilty/irritated, avoiding any locks. And since we rely on our devices too much these days, the solution of just leaving or turning off your phone (for example) won’t work.
So, my idea now lies in the question – is it possible to create something that would make the experience with the device more “ecological” for the user without compromising their need for the device? And what emotions/feelings do users have while interacting with their device?
