Slate: “Monotasking” (Mark quoted)

June 16, 2016

“We’re in this environment in the workplace where it’s a structure that’s set up by the technology that makes it really difficult for people to monotask,” said Gloria Mark, professor of informatics at the University of California–Irvine who studies distraction in the workplace. “You can, of course, turn off technology and focus, but then individuals who do that are penalized because they’re not available for interacting with colleagues, they’re not available if their manager needs to contact them, so they’re stuck between a rock and a hard place.”

Read the full story at Slate.

NSF awards Dourish $195,000 for software studies-centric research

June 15, 2016

Chancellor’s Professor of Informatics Paul Dourish has received nearly $195,000 from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for his project, “Representational Materialities of Internet Protocols.” The two-year project will study the Internet as a historically and geographically specific object, helping to contribute to the emerging field of software studies. It will “study the material properties and consequences of the way that bits are arranged in wires, data structures are organized on disks, databases are arranged to support specific kinds of operations, and textual and graphical representations are designed for human visual and cognitive processing,” according to its abstract. Ultimately, the project is very multidisciplinary, bringing together technologists, social scientists, policymakers and regulators to “speak to public concerns and policies over internet regulation and network neutrality,” the abstract says.
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UPDATE: Franz, Dourish formally recognized as ACM Fellows

June 13, 2016

The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), the world’s largest educational and scientific computing society, formally recognized Chancellor’s Professor of Computer Science Michael Franz and Chancellor’s Professor of Informatics Paul Dourish as 2015 ACM Fellows at a special reception and banquet in San Francisco over the weekend of June 11. Franz earned the ACM Fellow rank for his contributions to just-in-time compilation and optimization to compiler techniques for computer security. Dourish was honored as an ACM Fellow for his contributions in social computing and human-computer interaction. For more details about Franz, Dourish and their accomplishment, visit the original fellowship announcement.
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Harvard Business Review: “Some Companies Are Banning Email and Getting More Done” (Mark research cited)

June 9, 2016

Banning or putting restrictions on email, the research suggests, can dramatically increase individual productivity and reduce stress. Researchers from the University of California, Irvine and the U.S. Army cut off email usage for thirteen civilian office workers and measured the effects on productivity and stress. The researchers first took participants through a three-day baseline period in which they were interviewed and observed both visually and with computer monitoring software (to see how which programs they used, how often, and how much their work was interrupted). They even measured the participants’ heart rates (as a proxy for stress levels). Then they pulled the plug on email, installing a filter on the participants’ email program—which would file away all incoming messages for later reading and remove all notifications.

Read the full story at Harvard Business Review.

PRWeb: “Online Minecraft Summer Camps Launch June 27” (Ito quoted)

June 5, 2016

Kids interested in playing Minecraft while gaining game design, engineering, architectural and coding skills are being offered online camps this summer through Connected Camps.

“We’re delighted to be offering an expanded range of camps this summer,” said Mimi Ito, Connected Camps co-founder and research director of the Digital Media & Learning Research Hub at UC Irvine. “We have developed new programs in architecture, engineering, game design, and intermediate coding that build on our kid camp and coding camp from last year. We’ve also learned that sometimes girls need their own special programs, so we are offering girls-only camps in addition to our coed camps to encourage more girls to join us.”

Read the full story at PRWeb.

The Courier Mail: “Technology is creating a generation of dummies” (Mark mentioned)

June 3, 2016

Gloria Mark is a professor specialising in human-computer interactions at the University of California, Irvine. She collaborated on a workplace study that found after only 20 minutes of interrupted performance, people reported significantly higher stress, frustration, workload, effort and pressure.

One possible solution, Mark says, is to design systems that limit the frequency of these technology distractions. The coders who create the distractions can also reduce them.

Read the full story at The Courier Mail RendezView.

How Apple Watch and pervasive computing can lure you into leveling up your fitness

May 13, 2016

By visiting project scientist Michael Cowling

Hello, my name is Michael, and I’m a Ring Addict.

No, not the one ring from “Lord of the Rings”; not the cheap costume jewelry you get at the local Renaissance Fair. I’m talking about the red, green and blue rings that adorn my Apple Watch, tracking how much I move, exercise and stand.

For the last five months, I’ve worked daily to meet those magical milestones that appear on my watch face, culminating last month in my earning the badge for 100 days of meeting my move goal. I’m hopelessly addicted, so much so that I sometimes take an extra lap around the University of California Irvine’s Aldrich Park just to make sure to get my red ring for the day.

Read the full story at The Conversation.