Week 6: Neasa & Kruthi

We're into week 6 and it was Neasa & Kruthi in the class this time around. They spoke about design for care & how design can help with stress & anxiety.

The Presentation

Neasa opened the presentation by speaking about what does care really mean and how does it relate to technology. Where does the designer come in all of this and how technology in the caring space has developed over the years. She then went on to talk about technology and how it can also be a stressor, she spoke about social media apps that create stress within our minds and can be anxiety inducing.

Post that, she spoke about technology as a de-stressor and what products exist out there that can help. She spoke about Emwave which is a pulse sensor and helps relax. Another one was Dodow which helps people with insomnia. The last one was headspace which is an app for meditative practices, myself being a user of headspace really enjoyed some of the facts and figures during this part of the presentation.

Kruthi came in and elaborated on ASMR which is autonomous sensory meridian response. It’s basically a tingling sensation behind the back of head and all the way down to the spine, it’s triggered by certain types of audio and video. She explained not everyone has ASMR and is capable of getting that sensation. She explained how it’s used in movies and cinema and went on to talk about technostress which is stress associated with new technologies. She gave the example of Sulis and how a new student would face stress using it.

Post that everyone was asked to bring out their earphones and we all listened to an ASMR audio clip (see below) which was binaural. Some people felt it and other didn’t. Either way the results were pretty fascinating.

The Workshop

After a short break we all moved to the studio where we were broken up into teams of 4. Myself, Niamh, Liam, Chidi and Gabriela were in one team. There were a series of tasks to be completed and it was sort of a relay race where one could only move to the other activity once their teammate tagged them after completing their activity.

Activities included:

1. Eating Oreos that were placed on your face without touching them.

2. Throwing skittles into cups from a distance.

3. Blind folded walk through a short maze.

4. Balloon bursting where each participant had a balloon tied to their leg and had to brush other participant’s balloon (I did this).

5. Last one being a rather absurd one where the player would have to drink a kind of juice from the cup and flip the glass to reveal stickers on the bottom.

After a bit of cheating and hacking we were in the lead and I was passed the torch, Stephen was just getting his balloon tied to the leg and I sneaked up to burst them and take the lead and passed the torch to Gabriela, she mentioned the squash juice was pretty bad and she tried her best but we couldn’t find the glasses required to win the game. Unfortunately we lost but I was able to get a gold medal from one of the winners.

I thought that the presentation was great but I was a little confused between technostress and technology as a stressor. I believe that there’s an overlap between the two which shows how much technology can stress humans. I loved the workshop and the fact that each activity was stressing in one way or the other to make sure we understood how stress affects our behaviour without us even knowing it.

*****