Abstract

This PhD thesis introduces and discusses the concept of mindful hybrid presence – an intentional and balanced way of maintaining presence across the physical and digital realms in today’s Western society. Whereas the term presence in Human-Computer-Interaction is rather bound to Virtual Reality research, this thesis focuses on the ways current digital mobile technology devices, such as notebooks, smartwatches and most prominently, smartphones, affect our experience of presence and engagement with our inner and outer world(s). As the listed devices, and their services, become increasingly intertwined with our everyday lives, so does the concern increasingly grow that our reliance on them can negatively impact our presence and well-being. I propose the concept of mindful hybrid presence as a potential solution to mitigate the negative effects, while harvesting the benefits, of the addition of digital presence. As the title suggests, the thesis comprises three parts: explorations, trade-offs and enabling technology designs. These three parts are investigated through four research questions, with the first question grounding work for the remaining three. The grounding research question, RQ0, guides the explorations of the continuum of hybrid presence. I consider hybrid presence to encompass a feeling and experience of stretched consciousness along the being-here in the physical environment and the being-there in the digital environment. In hybrid presence, these environments are to blend so as to ultimately diminish the border between them to offer new ways of connecting, learning and experiencing our environment and ourselves. However, many people report having problems with such blended environments, in particular being dissatisfied by the amount of time and the quality of the digital interaction. To address these problems, this thesis proposes the concept of consciously instrumentalizing mindfulness cues into technology to encourage a mindful hybrid presence – a state of heightened intention and awareness to manage and navigate presence between the realms in the hybrid presence continuum. Following, RQ1 investigates users’ perception and experience of presence to examine the trade-offs of hybrid presence. By following a user-centred approach, we employ qualitative and quantitative data collection methods such as user surveys and interviews, love/breakup letters, experience sampling, as well as automated data tracking with corresponding machine learning analysis. The results of these investigations yield several users’ needs within hybrid presence, reflecting a rather complex influence of hybrid presence on people’s overall feeling of well-being. The emerging users’ needs call for a balanced approach to the subject of interacting with the digital environment, opposed to common restrictive approaches – at the same time highlighting a crucial need to (self-)control primarily digital presence. RQ2 and RQ3 lead investigations into the design and evaluation of enabling technology designs for mindful hybrid presence. Within this scope, we investigate mindfulness in HCI to develop self-control strategies that are to be consciously instrumentalized within technology. This led us to set our focus on either: 1) raising awareness on intentional digital interaction or the physical environment the digital interaction is taking place in, or 2) encouraging activity redirection to the physical environment after prolonged digital presence. These strategies oppose current works that focus on restricting the digital environment only, in that they take a holistic approach towards the whole context in which digital interaction and digital influence is taking place. We implement these strategies within a series of high-fi prototypes and evaluate the capability of the prototypes in fostering mindful hybrid presence through field and lab studies. The studies’ findings suggest mindfulness-based designs to promote a more intentional and balanced interaction with the digital environment with further investigations needed on a canonized way of evaluation metrics. The thesis discusses the complex interplay between technology, presence, and mindfulness for current and emerging ubiquitous technologies, from a user-centred point of view. It offers insights into the role of technology in our lives and suggests further topics on the design of technology to support more intentional and balanced engagement with the world accessible from our digital devices.