The digital architecture of time management

This article explores how the shift from print to electronic calendars materializes and exacerbates a distinctively quantitative, “spreadsheet” orientation to time. Drawing on interviews with engineers, I argue that calendaring systems are emblematic of a larger design rationale in Silicon Valley to mechanize human thought and action in order to make them more efficient and reliable. The belief that technology can be profitably employed to control and manage time has a long history and continues to animate contemporary sociotechnical imaginaries of what automation will deliver. In the current moment we live in the age of the algorithm and machine learning, so it is no wonder, then, that the contemporary design of digital calendars is driven by a vision of intelligent time management. As I go on to show in the second part of the article, this vision is increasingly realized in the form of intelligent digital assistants whose tracking capacities and behavioral algorithms aim to solve life’s existential problem—how best to organize the time of our lives. This article contributes to STS scholarship on the role of technological artifacts in generating new temporalities that shape people’s perception of time, how they act in the world, and how they understand themselves

Conversing with personal digital assistants: on gender and artificial intelligence

This paper aims to explore the relationship between gender and artificial intelligence, seeking to understand how and why chatbots and digital assistants appear to be mostly female. To this end, it begins by addressing artificial intelligence and the questions that emerge with its evolution and integration in our daily lives. It then approaches the concept of gender in light of a binary framework, focusing on femininity. These topics are then related, in order to shed some light on how chatbots and digital assistants tend to display feminine attributes. In an attempt to observe these aspects, an analysis of Alexa, Cortana and Siri is developed, focusing on their anthropomorphization, the tasks they perform and their interactions. Complementing this discussion, the project Conversations with ELIZA is presented as an exploration of femininity in AI, through the development of four chatbots integrated into a web-based platform, each performing specific tasks and simulating particular personalities, with the purpose of emphasizing feminine roles and stereotypes. In this manner, this study aims to understand and explore how gender relates to AI, why femininity seems to be often present in AI and which gender roles or stereotypes are reinforced in this process

Supporting individual time management through the capture and display of temporal structures

This thesis work examines the time management strategies of individuals in an academic institution and gathers information on the complex temporal structures they experience and manage. Its focus is on understanding the relationship between the quality of individual time management and an individual\u27s understanding and use of temporal structures. This work consists of an exploratory field study to gather data on how people use temporal structures with electronic tools. It is followed by a survey that is given to a larger group of respondents in the same subject population examined with the field study. The survey examines the hypotheses developed from a literature review on the impact and role of time in people\u27s work lives coupled with the information uncovered in the filed study on time management practices. A research model is developed using partial least squares to examine the relationships between the key survey constructs. This study demonstrates that the use and understanding of temporal structures is an important component for good individual time management. Four properties of individual time management quality were identified and utilized to characterize who are good time managers. These four properties include planning, meeting deadlines, sensing a lack of time control and engaging in procrastination. Significant differences are found in the use of explicit temporal structures, creation of temporal structures and understanding of temporal structure relationships between good time managers and poor time managers. A research model was built to understand the interacting variable relationships. Significant differences in the relationships between quality of individual time management and various temporal structures were discovered among students, faculty and staff members in the university studied. Students mostly use and understand a range of explicit and implicit temporal structures in their personal time management. Faculty members focus on using explicit temporal structures and creating their own temporal structures to support their time management. Staff members only utilize the temporal structures to do time planning. Implicit temporal structure understanding helps them avoid procrastination in their work. We explain these results as follows. The students are greatly entrained by a large number of tight and short deadlines which they do not have power to adjust, e.g., assignment due dates. Faculty members have much more time control and flexibility to create their own temporal structures. Except for meeting classes and turning in grades, they set their own schedules. Staff members are not concerned with meeting deadlines. They have constantly shifting instantaneous demands, part of which is responding to others temporal structure needs. Thus, their temporal structures only support their time planning, and avoid potential work delay. This research concludes that people exhibit different time experience based on their professions. Furthermore, good time managers demonstrate more skill in capturing and using their temporal structures than poor time managers. Because the current information technologies do not provide much support to capture temporal structures explicitly, this study also implies that it is likely to be a valuable exercise to integrate temporal structure features into personal time management systems such as electronic calendar tools

An enquiry into the temporal coordination of Groupware Calendar Systems (GCS): Conceptualizing the private and public perspectives

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.Groupware Calendar Systems (GCS), asynchronous on-line meeting schedulers are designed to fulfil the increased need for coordination of work, by supporting time management of temporally and geographically dispersed individuals and groups. From a study of the literature on GCS adoption, a premise was constructed that temporal coordination of GCS requires a marriage of conflicting private and public perspectives. This is based on the fact that firstly, the system has to support both individual and group work, and secondly, generally considered `private' information has to be publicized by individuals. However, there is a lack of understanding of the dynamism of these perspectives especially in relation to the process of temporal coordination in GCS. The aim of this thesis is to understand and conceptualize temporal coordination of GCS. The research strategy of this thesis adopts a `grounded approach' together with a `progressive research approach' to investigate the GCS phenomenon. The actions and processes of GCS-in-use are examined using the case study method. The research design progressively refines and reflects upon the findings in two stages: stage-one, two pilot studies and stage-two, two case studies. A selection of data collection techniques were used in order to obtain a rich data set via semi-structured in-depth interviews, observations, questionnaires, documentation and photographs. The analysis employed a pattern-matching technique and the `SCOT' framework, modified to examine the process of temporal coordination and the dynamic relationships produced in GCS which led to the construction of a new conceptual model. This model of 'reflective temporal equilibrium' presents the state of temporal coordination, formed by the phenomenon of continuous conflict between the private and public perspectives. The outcomes of this thesis provide a clearer theoretical picture of GCS, consequently leading to implications for its future design and adoption for better coordination and collaboration of work

Blox

ArtsUniversity of Michiganhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/136828/1/EmilieFarrugiaThesis.pd

Smartphone malware based on synchronisation vulnerabilities

Smartphones are mobile phones that offer processing power and features like personal computers (PC) with the aim of improving user productivity as they allow users to access and manipulate data over networks and Internet, through various mobile applications. However, with such anywhere and anytime functionality, new security threats and risks of sensitive and personal data are envisaged to evolve. With the emergence of open mobile platforms that enable mobile users to install applications on their own, it opens up new avenues for propagating malware among various mobile users very quickly. In particular, they become crossover targets of PC malware through the synchronization function between smartphones and computers. Literature lacks detailed analysis of smartphones malware and synchronization vulnerabilities. This paper addresses these gaps in literature, by first identifying the similarities and differences between smartphone malware and PC malware, and then by investigating how hackers exploit synchronization vulnerabilities to launch their attacks

HUMAN-AI COLLABORATION IN EVERYDAY WORK-LIFE PRACTICES: A COREGULATION PERSPECTIVE

Driven by the growing integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into daily work, this study investigates the Human-Intelligent Personal Assistants (IPAs) coregulation of work-life practices. Guided by an interpretive case study of Microsoft Viva Insights (MVI), we focus on the participation and influence of IPAs in daily work-life practices. Our findings reveal three coregulatory roles adopted by IPAs— rationalist, normalist, and moralist—that influence personal productivity, social bonding and relationship management, self-care, and work-life boundary management practices. By diving deeper into the human-AI relationship from a coregulation perspective, we contribute to the emerging IS literature on the nature and role of AI in transforming how people work. Our research provides valuable insights for practitioners, developers, and scholars aiming to enhance AI design and management, and investigate AI\u27s broader impact on human behaviours at work

How Silicon Valley sets time

Digital calendars are logistical media, part of the infrastructure that configures arrangements among people and things. Calendars increasingly play a fundamental role in establishing our everyday rhythms, shaping our consciousness of temporality. Drawing on interviews with several Silicon Valley calendar designers, this article explores how the conceptualization and production of scheduling applications codify contemporary ideals about efficient time management. I argue that these ideals reflect the driving cultural imperative for accelerated time handling in order to optimize productivity and minimize time wasting. Such mechanistic approaches treat time as a quantitative, individualistic resource, obscuring the politics of time embedded in what can and cannot be graphically represented on the grid interface. I conclude that electronic calendars are emblematic of a longstanding but mistaken belief, hegemonic in Silicon Valley, that automation will deliver us more time

The Impact of Mobile and Wireless Technology on Knowledge Workers: An Exploratory Study

Organisations continue to be disappointed at the difference that ICT has made to knowledge worker productivity. This paper reports an exploratory study of the extent to which emerging mobile and wireless ICT can support the mobile nature of the knowledge worker’s job, including the impact that these technologies can have on working practices, collaboration processes, knowledge worker performance, and productivity. We investigated these objectives by the example of geographically distributed IT consultants who had voluntarily adopted a mobile working solution which combined wireless General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) phones, Tablet Personal Computers (PCs), Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) in the organisation’s office buildings, and wireless broadband in the consultants’ homes. Personal productivity gains resulted from consultants’ ability to make use of previously unproductive time, access corporate information as needed, and communicate via multiple channels regardless of location. The new functionality, particularly of the Table PC, afforded the evolution of new working practices by supporting richer social connectivity, more engaging face-toface interaction, with the technology becoming more a social medium rather than barrier. Although based on an early adopter sample of IT professionals experienced with adopting new technology, we conclude from the study that emerging mobile and wireless ICT may have a greater impact on productivity due to its ability to support the mobile and collaborative nature of today’s knowledge workers’ job