Extreme mediation: Observing mental and physical health in everyday life

The excessive use of smartphones resulting in extreme mediation has been identified to result in psychological problems including anxiety, depression, and an overall neural change that is impacting people of all ages on many levels. An exploratory study using Experience Sampling Method (ESM) concluded a significant increase in positive mood, conscious awareness of the surrounding environment, and an increased number of participants self-reporting physical activity lasting 15 minutes on days without smartphone use. Results suggest the need to avoid increased use of noninvasive technology such as smartphones resulting in deterioration of mental and physical health

Consumer Health Informatics: Empowering Healthy-Lifestyle-Seekers Through mHealth

People are at risk from noncommunicable diseases (NCD) and poor health habits, with interventions like medications and surgery carrying further risk of adverse effects. This paper addresses ways people are increasingly moving to healthy living medicine (HLM) to mitigate such health threats. HLM-seekers increasingly leverage mobile technologies that enable control of personal health information, collaboration with clinicians/other agents to establish healthy living practices. For example, outcomes from consumer health informatics research include empowering users to take charge of their health through active participation in decision-making about healthcare delivery. Because the success of health technology depends on its alignment/integration with a person's sociotechnical system, we introduce SEIPS 2.0 as a useful conceptual model and analytic tool. SEIPS 2.0 approaches human work (i.e., life's effortful activities) within the complexity of the design and implementation of mHealth technologies and their potential to emerge as consumer-facing NLM products that support NCDs like diabetes

The Influence of Holistic and Analytic Cognitive Styles on Online Information Design: Toward a communication theory of cultural cognitive design

Although studies have linked culture to online user preferences and performance, few communication researchers have recognized the impact of culture on online information design and usability. It is important to ask if people are better able to use and prefer Web sites created by designers from their own culture. We propose that to improve computer-mediated communication, Web site design should accommodate culturally diverse user groups. First, a body of research is presented that aligns East Asian cultures with more holistic cognitive styles and Western cultures with more analytical cognitive styles. Building on this contrast, a theory of cultural cognitive design is proposed as a means of understanding how cognitive styles that develop under the influence of culture lead to different ways of designing and organizing information for the Web

Reducing Cognitive Load of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Soldier-Operators: A Novel Weapon-UAV Control Design

poster abstractDuring armed conflict, unexpected events are routinely encountered owing to the lack of battlefield information. This condition is heightened when fireteams (3-4-soldiers) on patrol are dependent on information-communication from unmanned-aerial-vehicle (UAV) operators, miles away within a safe zone. In this scenario, communications from operators to the fireteam is time consuming, i.e., fireteams must remain unengaged and waiting for central-control information. Consequences from this battlefield configuration include potential time loss from possible evasive action and communication breakdown through compromised telecommunications. This all adds to soldier anxiety and cognitive load. Research suggests that incongruity between fireteam expectations and battlefield conditions erode the interpretation of events, leading to further degradation of effective decision-making during armed conflict or reconnaissance. In response to this problem we investigated how to improve soldier reconnaissance activities through a novel Situational-Aware UAV-Riflei System (SURS)—an integrated technology that gives the fireteam soldier-user autonomous control of the UAV with no constriction to accessing the firearm controls. Six participants, with varying degrees of experience with flying or using UAV interface controls were recruited for this study. A usability test comparing SURS with standard UAV controls focused on time-on-task and error-rate, as well as ease-of-use. Using the baseline results of the standard control interface from the UAV manufacturer, was it possible to demonstrate a significant improvement using SURS to execute complex UAV maneuver-agility tasks? The SURS system achieved positive usability results in performance and control capabilities. A comparative analysis of task speed and errors indicated a faster learning curve for the embedded SURS control interface, with a decrease in error by 30%. Besides performance benefits, an observed change in user-awareness levels (without performance loss), represents an optimum battlefield alternative for embedded controls. For our technology design we used a blue-orange Nurf-Gun in the place of a real Army regulation rifle

Secondary users and the personal mhealth record: Designing tools to improve collaboration between patients and providers

Abstract: This paper describes a patient-centered health information technology (HIT) for primary and secondary users. Primary users are the main operators of a system and control dissemination of its information [1]. Secondary users have experiences through primary users [2]. A smartphone personal health record was prototyped for use in an experimental study with providers as secondary users. Patients are often secondary users in healthcare, but patientcentered care requires that patients have digital tools to manage their own health data to be better able to participate in healthcare decisions, making them primary users [3]

Correlating the effects of flow and telepresence in virtual worlds: Enhancing our understanding of user behavior in game-based learning

Recent research on online learning suggests that virtual worlds are becoming an important environment to observe the experience of flow. From these simulated spaces, researchers may gather a deeper understanding of cognition in the context of game-based learning. Csikszentmihalyi (1997) describes flow as a feeling of increased psychological immersion and energized focus, with outcomes that evoke disregard for external pressures and the loss of time consciousness, issuing in a sense of pleasure. Past studies suggest that flow is encountered in an array of activities and places, including those in virtual worlds. The authors’ posit that flow in virtual worlds, such as Second Life (SL), can be positively associated with degrees of the cognitive phenomenon of immersion and telepresence. Flow may also contribute to a better attitude and behavior during virtual game-based learning. This study tested three hypotheses related to flow and telepresence, using SL. Findings suggest that both flow and telepresence are experienced in SL and that there is a significant correlation between them. These findings shed light on the complex interrelationships and interactions that lead to flow experience in virtual gameplay and learning, while engendering hope that learners, who experience flow, may acquire an improved attitude of learning online

Supporting Information Management in ICU Rounding

Team rounds on patients in the hospital's intensive care unit (ICU) results in the generation of several paper-based and digital notes. Paper-based notes, although short-lived, act as translational artifacts that help organize and coordinate patient information and care. Maintaining double records of paper and digital notes can introduce several awareness and coordination problems such as contextually situating clinicians as to a patient's on-going care. Based on the design requirements derived from our fieldwork, we propose a new technology, PANI (Patient-centered Notes and Information Manager). PANI is a clinical tool that integrates the use of a mobile application, paper-based artifacts, and a wearable device (such as FitBit) in one system to support the management of notes and action-items that are generated throughout a typical ICU clinical shift. In this paper, we present the functional design of PANI and our preliminary findings of a participatory study that included 15 clinician participants