This research examines mixed reality meetings, a context where individuals attend to both face-to-face group members while multitasking with technology. In these meetings, members engage simultaneously with those physically present and those outside of the meeting (virtual communication partners). Technology multitasking in meetings has a dual effect: it not only impacts the individual user, it has the potential to transform how collocated groups communicate and work together since attention becomes fragmented across multiple competing tasks. Qualitative and quantitative methods were used to investigate mixed reality meetings across four themes: (1) the factors contributing to the likelihood to multitask based on meeting type, polychronicity (one’s preference for multitasking), and cohesion beliefs, (2) behavior during mixed reality assessed by copresence management, (3) attitudes toward technology multitasking, and (4) subjective outcomes measured by perceived productivity and meeting satisfaction. The qualitative data set consists of fieldwork from a global software company and interviews with 8 information workers. The quantitative data are comprised of survey results from the fieldwork site (n=156) and an online panel of information workers (n=110). Results indicate that information workers perceive distinct meeting types that are associated with implicit norms for appropriate technology multitasking. These norms varied based on the relevance of a meeting segment and if a power figure was present. A higher preference score for multitasking (high polychronicity) was significantly correlated with increased technology multitasking and perceived productivity. Members of cohesive teams exhibited the most technology multitasking and perceived their teammates multitasking as appropriate. However, outsiders who exhibited the same behaviors were viewed as rude and distracting. Overall, information workers who multitasked during meetings did so with electronic communication tasks (e-mail and instant messaging) as opposed to other computing tasks (e.g. writing documents, researching information). These findings are discussed in relation to psychological studies on multitasking, computer-supported cooperative work, and social constructionist views of technology use. This dissertation is a contribution to the assessment of technology use in social settings, particularly in organizations where tasks are often interrupted and a reliance on electronic communication tools impacts how people manage and accomplish work. / text

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This Master Thesis concerns a telepresence implementation which utilizes state-of-the-art virtual reality combined with live 360 degree video. Navigation interfaces for telepresence with virtual reality headsets were developed and evaluated through a user study. An evaluation of telepresence as a communication media was performed, comparing it to video communication. The result showed that telepresence was a better communication media than video communication.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many organizations and employees suddenly became increasingly reliant on digital technologies to safely continue work. In this master’s thesis, I tried to understand how such rapid change could be understood when compared to wider, more gradual processes of intensifying media reliance. This was a case study of a department within a Swedish municipality administration. Through employee interviews and a thematic analysis, and by drawing from mediatization theory and the figurational approach, I aimed to explore how a sudden increase in digital distance work had affected experiences of figurational togetherness, and how this related to wider processes of mediatization. More specifically, I assessed how practices of communication were perceived to have changed with digital distance work, and how the latter had affected aspects of power and the self.  In sum, there had been a formalization and individualization of ‘figurational togetherness’ – the social experience of being with others in one or more figurations. Communication was generally perceived to have become more formal, structured, and efficient, but also more detached than before. At the same time, digital distance work appeared to have facilitated self-empowerment and individuality. Such processes had a partial and sometimes contradictory relation to wider processes of mediatization. The findings of this study were conceptualized as a ‘loss of chaos’. Given a newly gained perspective on physical copresence, I argued that one could start to make out the attributes of its materiality. Physical space involved chance, messiness, and contingency, but also inspiration, information richness and subtle yet complex social dynamics. Such aspects of chaos did not always translate well into the digital realm, something that was attributed to the characteristics and capacities that current digital collaboration tools did and did not have. Ultimately, the argument was made that this calls for further inquiries into the materiality of digital office technologies and that of physical copresence itself.