I am fascinated by persuasive technologies. They have been used and are being used widely especially in marketing and social media, and so have received somewhat of a negative reputation. I am really interested in their ability to foster connection and social cohesion around different topics in the classroom and in broader society. Although I cannot find any sp[ecific sources which focuses solely on the market projections of persuasive technologies, they are a part of the AI Intelligence field. This free open source journal ‘frontiers in Artificial Intelligence’ focuses on the use of persuasive technologies specifically within the physical and mental health fields – I am a proud owner of a Garmin Watch and really enjoy ‘needing’ out on how my fitness, sleep and stress level improves with monitoring it! The journal also has a couple of articles focusing on marketing – a full list of the articles associated with Persuasive technologies is available here. I will certainly be keeping an eye on the journal to see if they move into other fields in the use of persuasive technologies!
Persuasive technologies – Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence
4 responses to “Persuasive technologies – Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence”
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Hi Siobhan,
This particularly is interesting and really what we all need especially since the pandemic has impacted our lives. There is definitely going to be an increase and demand for services to address mental health, fitness, healthy habits, etc.
Yes agreed Analesa. I am watching carefully to see what higher level institutions do for mental health and student well-being. I just got an email from UBC today sharing a resource with us encouraging students to share stories to address anxiety due to pandemic. I thought of this as an interesting exercise at the start of the pandemic (digital stories) to try to foster connection, but got no support for it. We shall see where UBC takes it now!
Hi Siobhán and analesa,
I just spent some time browsing and searching the Frontiers site and appreciate the focused scope of the articles found there; the site offers 8 specialty topics related to AI research, it’s straight-forward to navigate, and the search function is effective. I’m bookmarking this one to keep an eye on.
I actually started replying because of the discussion on mental health and student well being reminded me of a presentation from CiCan’s conference this year on Sustainable Happiness (https://www.dawsoncollege.qc.ca/sustainable/sustainable-happiness/) , presented jointly by Chris Adam from Dawson College and Catherine O’Brien. ( https://sustainablehappiness.world/about-2) The concept was new to me, and extremely fascinating.
What I can’t seem to locate are any details about their 100-day Sustainable Happiness journal presented at the conference. It’s a journal that encourages reflection on a wide range of topics drawn from research on happiness, well-being and sustainability. It’s recommended to complement course material and asks questions like ” Describe a location you spend the most time in”, and “What problem do you feel proud of solving”.
I recognize that this is an example of a low-tech/no-tech mental health approach (it’s literally a pen and paper journal) however, arguably, pen and paper is “technology” but more critically, perhaps bringing the ‘sustainable happiness’ lens to next generation persuasive technologies is part of the expanding frontier?
As a wearer of a Garmin watch for sports as well, persuasive technology has been an interest of mine for awhile. I don’t think it would be too hard to incorporate persuasive technology into the educational setting, but it needs to be done with some education around it for students. The more they know about them the more opportunity for adaptation and also the awareness of the persuasive techniques used by these technologies and how they can identify negative persuasion.