Calming Tech Approaches to Money as Stressor

Description of current approaches (both tech and non-tech) for stress worries associated with our relationship to money.

Transcript

1. Stress: People go out of their way to worry about money In the domain of Work/Life by Christine Rosakranse
2. Money Woes: Non-tech Approaches • Keeping a budget • Only using cash, no credit cards • Diversion from difficulty ◦ Reading a book ◦ Painting ◦ Going online • Ignoring the problem ◦ Keeping it a secret from friends/close others • Spending more money that you don't have • Asking friends and family for help ◦ Sometimes causes more stress and worry for D. Compress- Calming Technology: Stanford, Spring 2012 by Christine Rosakranse
3. Tech Approaches • Mint.com program to budget • Sites where you tell others that you are endeavoring to make a change and/or promise to pay if you don't ◦ http://www.promiseaid.com/ • Individual bank sites that help you to visualize your spending • Sites like www.billmonk.com to help pay people back or split rent for D. Compress- Calming Technology: Stanford, Spring 2012 by Christine Rosakranse
4. Insights from Interviews • Interview One: Stress caused from relationship troubles compounded by economic stress. How can I help others? This was her biggest stressor, kept her from sleeping at night. • Interview Two: Money as a source of contention between people. Owing money, etc. Perhaps making an online schedule for reimbursement. (www.billmonk.com) • Interview Three: "I spend money that I don't have to make myself feel better." "This makes me feel even worse." Needs some way to stop this behavior to end this spending/feeling bad cycle. for D. Compress- Calming Technology: Stanford, Spring 2012 by Christine Rosakranse
5. Questions for Future Exploration • How do we make money-related calming technology ubiquitous, non-invasive, and easy for the user? • How do we ensure that they are processing the information centrally versus peripherally, if we are looking for long-term behavior change? • How to make worrying useful, instead of being a source of pure stress without resolve. • Perhaps we can place a "protector" on one's bank account: ◦ Think "Suze Orman application" ◦ What are the use issues for this type of app? Freedom vs. Need to Budget ◦ Use ROI terminology (with Happiness as a metric) for D. Compress- Calming Technology: Stanford, Spring 2012 by Christine Rosakranse