Creativity Greenhouse: Digital Brain Switch

The rise in the use of digital technologies challenges work life boundaries, particularly as individuals increasingly work from a range of locations, experience frequent interruptions and feel required to 'stay connected' through multiple communication channels. The central research question to be explored in this project is: How do modern communications affect our ability to manage transitions across work life boundaries? This will help us to understand whether technology supports the management of more flexible transitions, creating more permeable boundaries and a less segmented persona, or whether it encourages leakage across boundaries and a difficult identity management tasks.

Our ultimate vision is for individuals' switches between identities to be supported through new digital technologies. However, the focus in this proposal is on understanding switches. As a metaphor for the vision, however, we
imagine a "digital brain switch", as illustrated in the following scenario:

Alan has just started his own social enterprise to encourage local trading practices. It is a challenging time for him, as he has to juggle various identities - businessman, husband, community champion, friend. He doesn't have an office to go to and works from home in the kitchen. When his wife works at home, she is comfortable receiving interruptions - she has an uncanny ability to multi-task. However, even when alone, Alan finds it difficult to concentrate on work at home - it's just too easy to interrupt a business proposal by checking Facebook constantly. But he doesn't prevent himself from doing this because he uses Facebook to promote local community groups. Sometimes, when he comes home from an exciting business meeting, Alan finds it impossible to switch back into family life. He just wants to flick a switch in his brain that would stop all the work thoughts from whizzing around and let him relax with his wife.

This scenario illustrates three key attributes that make managing switches between identities challenging: the blurring of boundaries between identities (worker, family man, community champion); the fact that everyone is an individual and has different ways of dealing with switches
(cf. Alan and his wife); and the changes in control that modern ways of working can promote.

This project will undertake an in-depth study of how people manage switches both in the corporeal and digital worlds, focusing on the role of modern communications and their impact on switching practices. The project will develop a research platform that will allow people to capture their switching experiences and to reflect with others on how they manage them. The project will also develop a number of interventions designed to explore how digital technologies can support people to manage switches.

For many years, a key aim of government policy in Britain has been the achievement of "full and fulfilling employment" (Brown et al., 2004). Although trends in job quality can be erratic (decreasing in the 1990s, but increasing levels of satisfaction from 1998 to 2004 (Brown et al., 2004)), levels of work-related stress are likely to increase in the future (EASHW, 2009). The national importance of well-being at work was recognized by RCUK with a £4M investment in the ESRC Future of Work Programme, which states that "Few subjects could be judged more vital to current policy and academic debates than the prospects for work and employment." In contrast to the current proposal, the Future of Work Programme was focused on policy and did not consider the impact of digital technologies on WLB as a central theme. The EPSRC portfolio considers the importance of general well-being issues (Healthcare technologies challenge theme, DE Sustainable Society) but has no focus on the impact of digital technologies on WLB. The closest funded research is that on digital technologies for behavioural change, but this has focused on travel, personal health, and energy. Therefore, there is a gap in the current EPSRC portfolio, and this gap concerns a major
societal issue identified as a strategic priority by UK governments (cf. the Government's WLB Campaign launched in 2000).

Our impact plan has been developed with a view to maximising the impact of the project's results to deliver three key impact objectives: (i) Impact on the day-to-day working practices of individuals struggling with work-life balance (WLB) issues; (ii) Raising public awareness of WLB issues in the context of modern communications; (iii) Influencing social and research policy on WLB.

This will be achieved through a detailed plan of impact-related activities (see Pathways to Impact), summarized below:

(i) Dissemination of results through organizations such as the Work Foundation, the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development and Ways2Work to ensure that our results can impact on public policy.

(ii) Engagement with the general public through media coverage and public demonstrations at public festival, such as the Manchester Science Festival and FutureEverything.

(iii) Consideration of commercialization opportunities through Lancaster's Knowledge Business Centre and by Open-sourcing code, design documentation, and other software/hardware artefacts to developer groups to promote commercial and/or not-for-profit development.

(iv) A coordinated dissemination plan that includes a project website, extensive use of social media, and leverage of existing dissemination platforms such as the OU's OpenLearn and Platform.