Stanford Calming Tech: Stress through Email

Initial insights from interview with 3 student staff members of Muwekma-Tah-Ruk, Stanford's Native-American-themed dorm.

Transcript

1. CS-377D: d.compress: Designing Calm | 15 January 2013 | Cassidy Saenz Stress through Email ✤ POV: Muwekma’s Student Staff Members NEED to feel less overwhelmed by their inbox and reduce the sense of urgency around checking email BECAUSE a full inbox snowballs into procrastination, which in turn creates stress around social pressure to acknowledge and reply to one another’s emails, regardless of their absolute “importance”. Monday, January 14, 13
2. ✤ Memorable Quotes (Row House Staff): ✤ “I feel super awkward when I haven’t replied yet, then see someone in person [frowns].” ✤ On a full inbox: “I’m forced to delete! It upsets me because I have to narrow it down, just because I’m afraid of having a full inbox.” ✤ “[Someone] sends me an important message. Because [they] sent me an email, they think that I’ve read it, [though they could] just tell me in person. So come time when the [event] happens, if I haven’t read my email, I’m just...I’m lost, I’m in the dark.” ✤ “For every one hit, there’s like 100 things that are just wasteful emails.” ✤ “It just embeds this obsessive-compulsive behavior that you have to reply to it or have to check it.” ✤ “At what point is it gonna be that you start spending like a third of your life just checking emails?” Monday, January 14, 13
3. ✤ Stress Model: Monday, January 14, 13