No description available.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Knowledge workers often suffer productivity loss because of unsuccessful interruption handling, which can lead to even more detrimental behaviors like "cyber-slacking" and procrastination. Many of the interruption management techniques proposed in the research literature focus on minimizing interruption occurrences. However, given the inevitability of internal and external interruptions in everyday life, it may be more practical to help people regulate how they respond to interruptions using persuasive technologies. The aim of this dissertation is to explore and evaluate the design of persuasive computer agents that encourage information workers to resume interrupted work. Based on a systematic review of interruptions in the workplace, theories of self-regulation, and theories guiding the design of persuasive technologies, this dissertation describes the creation of a prototype research platform, WiredIn. WiredIn enables researchers to explore a variety of interruption resumption support strategies on desktop computers. Two empirical studies that investigate the efficacy, attributes, and consequences of applying the paradigms embodied in WiredIn in controlled and real-life working environments are presented here. Both studies validate the effect of persuasive interventions on improving interruption management behaviors; the second study also provides design suggestions that can inform future work in supporting interruption management and multitasking.

Technology is changing the structure and dynamics of how humans communicate. Channels of communication are also used for attempts at persuasion, but until now persuasion that (if accepted) would promote the adoption of misinformation could not spread as readily through historical information channels. With the advent of the Internet and World Wide Web this has changed dramatically. In this dissertation it is argued that modern digital communication media such as YouTube, in confluence with what theories of persuasion have to say about how humans deal with persuasion, may create a situation in which misinformation may spread and be accepted on a large scale. The research in this dissertation explores this notion by presenting a group of 120 adolescents who are familiar with the Web with such a misinforming persuasive message. The purpose of which is to determine whether they accept the misinformation presented in the Web-context or are sceptical of it. Different manipulations were done to the persuasive message, known to increase the likelihood of persuasion. The research found that, for this group of participants, no attempt to increase uncritical acceptance of a persuasive message made a statistical difference between different groupings of participants. When intended behaviour was measured in addition to attitude towards the misinformation, participants were even less persuaded. The results are interesting as a starting point for further study, but its generalizability and certain design features must be called into question / Psychology / M.A. (Psychology)

Technology is changing the structure and dynamics of how humans communicate. Channels of communication are also used for attempts at persuasion, but until now persuasion that (if accepted) would promote the adoption of misinformation could not spread as readily through historical information channels. With the advent of the Internet and World Wide Web this has changed dramatically. In this dissertation it is argued that modern digital communication media such as YouTube, in confluence with what theories of persuasion have to say about how humans deal with persuasion, may create a situation in which misinformation may spread and be accepted on a large scale. The research in this dissertation explores this notion by presenting a group of 120 adolescents who are familiar with the Web with such a misinforming persuasive message. The purpose of which is to determine whether they accept the misinformation presented in the Web-context or are sceptical of it. Different manipulations were done to the persuasive message, known to increase the likelihood of persuasion. The research found that, for this group of participants, no attempt to increase uncritical acceptance of a persuasive message made a statistical difference between different groupings of participants. When intended behaviour was measured in addition to attitude towards the misinformation, participants were even less persuaded. The results are interesting as a starting point for further study, but its generalizability and certain design features must be called into question / Psychology / M.A. (Psychology)