Creativity Greenhouse: Digital Epiphanies

近年来科技的进步对人们结合工作和个人生活的方式产生了许多积极的影响。例如，能够通过智能手机收发电子邮件意味着许多人可以在家工作，或者采用灵活的工作模式，成功地适应照顾他人的责任。然而，由此产生的“永远在线”文化，人们期望几乎即时回复电子邮件信息，给那些感到有压力的人带来了压力和紧张，他们感到必须立即回复，并且全天候待命。许多智能手机的默认设置意味着，这些设备的用户经常会通过一系列通信渠道收到哔哔声和震动的新信息。这种无法抗拒的干扰导致朋友和家人抱怨说，智能手机的主人尽管身体在，但精神上并不总是在。这种情况非常普遍，以至于“黑莓”（Crackberry）一词已经成为常用用语，用来指黑莓用户过度使用黑莓智能手机。除了支持现代工作与生活的平衡实践，新技术及其特定的设计特点也为那些寻求可接受或令人满意的工作与生活平衡的人提出了挑战。尽管关于数字技术对工作与生活平衡的影响的争论广泛而激增，但很少有实证研究探讨这些技术是如何被使用的，以及它们的使用对人们的工作和个人生活产生了什么影响。该项目旨在通过两个中心目标，加强我们对新技术和数字实践对工作与生活平衡的矛盾和双刃剑效应的理解。首先，它将探讨一系列数字技术和实践对个人和家庭工作与生活平衡的影响。我们将调查：人们在家庭和工作中如何使用智能手机、平板电脑和台式电脑，这些技术如何支持和挑战人们创造和保持令人满意的工作与生活平衡？新技术是否会对工作与生活的平衡产生负面影响？人们正在开发什么技术和其他策略来管理这些影响，他们觉得自己有多成功？人们是否正在寻求改变他们使用技术的方式，平衡工作和生活，以应对感知到的负面影响？他们生活中的哪些事件和顿悟促使他们积极改变自己的数字和工作生活实践和行为？一些人在多大程度上试图改变他们的习惯，以寻求“简单、可持续和慢生活”？其次，该研究将测试现有技术是否可以用于支持和实现对技术和工作生活实践的反思，并在实践中带来可持续的变化。我们感兴趣的是探索人们的意识和行为与他们的一般技术实践（例如，他们的工作时间花在他们可能认为“非生产性”的活动上的百分比）和他们的电子邮件习惯的具体实践（例如，何时，何地，以及多久检查一次电子邮件）。我们将调查现有的软件工具是否以及如何促进对时间使用和工作与生活平衡问题的深刻反思，以及如何使用这些技术来诱导我们所谓的“数字顿悟”：人们生活中的时刻，他们停下来反思并寻求改变他们的工作与生活平衡和数字实践。我们还将实施旨在支持新的电子邮件习惯的新工具，例如减少检查新消息的频率，减少撰写和发送的消息数量，目的是为受访者提供更大的控制感，以控制他们的数字实践和他人对即时回复的感知期望。反过来，这可能会对工作与生活的平衡产生积极影响。

The advances in technology in recent years have had many positive effects on the ways in which people can combine work and personal life. For example, being able to access email via a smartphone means that many can work from home, or work a flexible work pattern that successfully fits around caring responsibilities. However, the resulting "always-online" culture in which people expect almost instant responses to email messages, brings stresses and strains to those who feel under pressure to respond immediately and be available on a 24/7 basis. The default settings on many smartphones mean that owners of such devices are frequently alerted by beeps and vibrations to new messages via an array of communication channels. Such irresistible interruptions result in friends and family complaining that the smartphone owner is not always mentally present despite being physically present. Such situations are so common that the term 'Crackberry' has entered common parlance to refer to the excessive use of the Blackberry smartphone by its users. In addition to supporting modern work-life balance practices, new technologies and their specific design characteristics therefore also present challenges for those seeking an acceptable or satisfactory work-life balance.Despite widespread and proliferating debates about the impacts of digital technologies on work-life balance, few empirical studies have explored how these technologies are being used and what impact their use is having on people's work and personal lives. This project seeks to enhance our understanding of the paradoxical and double-edged effects that new technologies and digital practices are having on work-life balance through two central objectives.First, it will explore the impact of a range of digital technologies and practices on work-life balance across a range of individuals and households. We will investigate: How are people using smartphones, tablets and desk-based computers at home and at work, and how can these technologies both support and challenge people in creating and maintaining a satisfactory work-life balance? Are new technologies having negative effects on work-life balance? What technological and other strategies are people developing to manage these effects, and how successful do they feel they have been? Are people seeking to change the ways in which they use technology, and balance work and life, in response to perceived negative effects? What events and epiphanies in their lives cause them to actively change their digital and work-life practices and behaviours? And to what extent are some people seeking to change their practices in search of 'simple, sustainable and slow living'?Second, the study will test whether existing technologies can be used to support and enable reflection on technological and work-life practices, and to bring about sustainable changes in practices. We are interested in exploring people's awareness and behaviours in relation to both their general technology practices (e.g. what percentage of their work time is spent on what they may regard as 'non-productive' activities) and their specific practices with regards to their email habits (e.g. when, where, and how often they check email). We will investigate whether and how existing software tools can promote deep reflection on time usage and work-life balance issues, and how such technologies may be used to induce what we are calling 'digital epiphanies': moments in people's lives where they pause to reflect on and seek change in their work-life balance and digital practices. We will also implement new tools that aim to support new email habits such as checking for new messages less frequently and reducing the number of messages composed and sent with the aim of providing respondents with a greater sense of control over their digital practices and the perceived expectations of others regarding immediate responses. This may in turn have a positive influence on work-life balance.