Immersive Interactive Technologies for Positive Change: A Scoping Review and Design Considerations

Practices such as mindfulness, introspection, and self-reflection are known to have positive short and long-term effects on health and well-being. However, in today\u27s modern, fast-paced, technological world tempted by distractions these practices are often hard to access and relate to a broader audience. Consequently, technologies have emerged that mediate personal experiences, which is reflected in the high number of available applications designed to elicit positive changes. These technologies elicit positive changes by bringing users\u27 attention to the self—from technologies that show representation of quantified personal data, to technologies that provide experiences that guide the user closer in understanding the self. However, while many designs available today are either built to support or are informed by these aforementioned practices, the question remains: how can we most effectively employ different design elements and interaction strategies to support positive change? Moreover, what types of input and output modalities contribute to eliciting positive states? To address these questions, we present here a state of the art scoping review of immersive interactive technologies that serve in a role of a mediator for positive change in users. We performed a literature search using ACM Digital Library, Web of Science, IEEE Xplore, and Design and Applied Arts Index (beginning of literature—January 1, 2018). We retrieved English-language articles for review, and we searched for published and unpublished studies. Risk of bias was assessed with Downs and Black 26-item QAT scale. We included 34 articles as relevant to the literature, and the analysis of the articles resulted in 38 instances of 33 immersive, interactive experiences relating to positive human functioning. Our contribution is three-fold: First we provide a scoping review of immersive interactive technologies for positive change; Second, we propose both a framework for future designs of positive interactive technologies and design consideration informed by the comparative analysis of the designs; Third, we provide design considerations for immersive, interactive technologies to elicit positive states and support positive change

Information and Communication Technologies: A Look at Policy in Higher Education for Sustainable Development

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) can be most strong enabler in efforts to bring positive and sustainable development in all the countries of the world. Evidence from large studies and meta-analysis suggests that use of ICTs, in particular computer technologies, is correlated to positive academic outcomes, including higher test scores, better attitudes towards studies, and better understanding of concepts and ideas. For better performance in traditional measures of academic achievements, a secondary benefit of ICTs in higher education is to introduce new generations with the technologies that have become important components of the modern world. ICTs provide new ideas to students and teachers with which way to learn and teach for development. We have to highlight the needs for policy that gives a vision and frame work for using ICTs within the higher education system. This paper aims to present the current state of how ICTs is being used in higher education and how this policy is beneficial for development and how it can better benefit current and future users. Keywords: Information and Communication Technology Policy, Development, Quality Improvement

Impulsivity, online disinhibition, and risk taking among digital millennials: challenges of e-Safety in Industry 4.0

Digital Millennials (i.e., people born from 1980 to 2004) have often been portrayed as quick to embrace emerging technologies. The envisioned future of Industry 4.0 entails the blending of hardware, software, and people to complete work; and given their affinity for digital resources, technology, and social networking applications, the Millennials could be regarded as a much-needed asset in this future workforce. However, systematic research on how this cohort understands and reacts to safety issues surrounding the use of technologies has been lacking. In particular, behaviours such as impulsivity, online disinhibition, and risk-taking among them remain unclear. The present study investigated this gap with a sample of 203 Millennials of various nationality groups. Using the short version of the Urgency, Premeditation, Perseverance, Sensation Seeking, and Positive Urgency (Short UPPS-P) scale, the Revised Online Disinhibition Scale, and the Online Risky Behaviour scale, the results indicated that the most significant predictors of online risk-taking behaviours are lack of premeditation, positive urgency, and toxic disinhibition. Interestingly, though not hypothesised, was gender as a significant predictor of the outcome. The findings implied that these variables might be the most relevant target areas for interventions that could modify risky behaviours in cyberspace. The study’s findings are discussed in relation to the key challenges associated with e-safety where the future trends would be heading towards the gig economy and crowd-working

Virtual technologies in supporting sustainable consumption : From a single-sensory stimulus to a multi-sensory experience

Virtual technologies will change the way we consume in the digital environment in the future. Such technologies can provide consumers with a multi-sensory experience in contrast to the single-sensory stimulus in the conventional online environment. As human senses play a key role in consumption choices, we argue that virtual technologies provide greater opportunities to influence consumer decisions than the present digital environment. Consequently, we suggest that virtual technologies can potentially be used to nudge consumers towards sustainable consumption. We discuss technology-assisted sensory marketing, present the cognitive and emotive aspects of virtual reality, and propose applications of virtual reality technologies to encourage sustainable consumption. Our opinion paper concludes that virtual technologies are likely to change many aspects of human life and can have significant positive effects on the environment and climate change.© 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).This work has been supported by KAUTE Foundation under Grant No. 20190003 and No. 20200531; OP Ryhmän Tutkimussäätiö ounder Grant No. 20200040, Academy of Finland under Grant No. 311346, Academy of Finland SRC CULT Programme under Grant No. 327241 (Digiconsumers) and Academy of Finland Flagship Programme under Grant No. 337653 (Forest-Human-MachineInterplay (UNITE)).fi=vertaisarvioimaton|en=nonPeerReviewed

Finance and Balanced Growth

The Uzawa (1961) theorem applied to finance and growthsuggests that a long-run positive correlation between financial efficiency and depth is only present when variations in the extent of access to financial services are considered. Improvements in financial efficiency can lead to new capital augmenting technologies along the balanced path, but only improvements in financial efficiency directed towards labor can change the rate of growth in the long-run. These findings suggest ways to understand some of the more nuanced relationships between finance and growth observed in the data and point in a number of directions for future research

After Crisis? – The Only Way: Economics for Sustainable Development

  The aim of the paper is to justify why contemporary economics must be reoriented from the direction of Economic Growth to the direction of Sustainable Development. Human society is at a deadly curve. The Economic crisis is only one slice of Gordon’s Knot of Crises of our Civilization. The Economy is facing system challenges without precedence. Reasons for this situation are different fetishes of present positive and normative economics. The au­thor explores the main aspects of diagnoses, prognoses, analyses, assessments, and present solutions concerning economy. Of fundamental importance are: the essence of the global cri­sis, new challenges facing Western civilization in the near future, and fundamental misunder­standings in the proposed solutions of crucial problems. The one chance for an adequate solu­tion to the critical situation is the Strategy of Sustainable Development. In Poland this strategy is absent in mainstream economics as a theory of economy and as the foundation of rational policy. It concerns a very broad front of economic sciences and economic technologies. Eco­nomic academic education is also not adequate to the very serious situation facing graduates in the future. Consciousness, knowledge and abilities of economic professionals are good for the past, not for the nearest future. In Poland, an additional problem is a lack of common eco­nomic academic education in English. Present economics and economy must be verified with many original (not translated) settlements and conclusions concerning sustainable develop­ment from economics and from other sciences and from reality outside economy. Of crucial importance have been settlements and conclusions of ecology and of sociology on the basis of information technologies

A Race to the Stars and Beyond: How the Soviet Union’s Success in the Space Race Helped Serve as a Projection of Communist Power

In the modern era, the notion of space travel is generally one of greater acceptance and ease than in times previously. Moreover, a greater number of nations (and now even private entities) have the technological capabilities to launch manned and unmanned missions into Earth’s Orbit and beyond. 70 years ago, this ability did not exist and humanity was simply an imprisoned species on this planet. The course of humanity’s then-present and the collective future was forever altered when, in 1957, the Soviet Union successfully launched the world’s first satellite into space, setting off a decades-long completion with the United States to cosmically outperform the other. In the context of the Cold War, the ensuring Space Race was more than friendly completion, rather it was a race to determine who’s military and civil society could produce the most powerful interstellar technologies, which in turn demonstrated the combative readiness of either side. This paper seeks to examine the Soviet Union’s success during the Space Race (and subsequently, the global Arms Race) and its place within the larger East versus West conflict which occurred in the earlier years of the Cold War. By utilizing academic literature and primary Soviet sources, this paper will analyze how the Space Race allowed the Soviet Union to promote the successes of a Communist government and how such a leadership style served as a positive determinant for advancements in space and the Soviet Union’s premier place in many suc

Multinational enterprises, industry 4.0 and sustainability:A multidisciplinary review and research agenda

Humanity is facing important challenges in the area of sustainability, for which all parties and means need to be brought together. Multinational enterprises (MNEs) are considered key actors for helping realise a successful transition towards a greener and more equitable future, in a time and age where much hope is set on novel digital technologies (often termed Industry 4.0) to expedite change ‘for good’. Despite this attention, however, there is limited insight into the actual state of the art regarding MNEs, Industry 4.0 and the implications for sustainability. As a result, academic knowledge of how MNEs develop and employ digital technologies, and what significance this has in relation to sustainability, is fragmented along disciplinary boundaries. We therefore conduct a systemic multidisciplinary review of the literature, examining the different types of digital technologies, the geographical scope of the studies, and the sustainability dimensions covered. Based on this critical evaluation, which considers both (potential) positive and negative implications, we present a promising research agenda for scholars on themes that are also highly relevant for organizations, individuals, societies and the planet