What do you think?
Rate this book
Positive Computing: Technology for Wellbeing and Human Potential
A case for building a digital environment that can make us happier and healthier, not just more productive, and a theoretical framework for doing so. On the eve of Google's IPO in 2004, Larry Page and Sergey Brin vowed not to be evil. Today, a growing number of technologists would go further, trying to ensure that their work actively improves people's lives. Technology, so pervasive and ubiquitous, has the capacity to increase stress and suffering; but it also has the less-heralded potential to improve the well-being of individuals, society, and the planet. In this book, Rafael Calvo and Dorian Peters investigate what they term “positive computing”—the design and development of technology to support psychological well-being and human potential. Calvo and Peters explain that technologists' growing interest in social good is part of a larger public concern about how our digital experience affects our emotions and our quality of life—which itself reflects an emerging focus on humanistic values in many different disciplines. Synthesizing theory, knowledge, and empirical methodologies from a variety of fields, they offer a rigorous and coherent foundational framework for positive computing. Sidebars by experts from psychology, neuroscience, human–computer interaction, and other disciplines supply essential context. Calvo and Peters examine specific well-being factors, including positive emotions, self-awareness, mindfulness, empathy, and compassion, and explore how technology can support these factors. Finally, they offer suggestions for future research and funding. Sidebars
Timothy N. Bickmore, Jeremy Bailenson, danah boyd, Jane Burns, David R. Caruso, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Felicia Huppert, Mary-Helen Immordino-Yang, Adele Krusche and J. Mark G. Williams, Jane McGonigal, Jonathan Nicholas, Don Norman, Yvonne Rogers
Timothy N. Bickmore, Jeremy Bailenson, danah boyd, Jane Burns, David R. Caruso, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Felicia Huppert, Mary-Helen Immordino-Yang, Adele Krusche and J. Mark G. Williams, Jane McGonigal, Jonathan Nicholas, Don Norman, Yvonne Rogers
299 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 31, 2014
25 people are currently reading
139 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
May 25, 2017
So, to be clear, I did not finish this book, but I had read enough.
I think digital technologies that help our lives are extremely important. I hoped that this book could tell me a bit about new methods for achieving that goal, perhaps, or visions of an empowering digital future. Nothing could be further from the case.
This book is, more than anything, an epistemological hijacking. The authors advocate underpowered research methods for quantifying emotion, cribbed from the social sciences, that are far weaker than qualitative methods, and wholly unsuitable for designing complex interactive systems.
More than anything, the book is a condescending and tedious survey course of a field ("positive psychology") replete with studies that fail to replicate. To make things that make people happy, and to do so "responsibly," we are told, we must surely have a multidisciplinary team that includes a positive psychologist and a mental health researcher. The idea that understandings of happiness and human emotion may be better developed for practical application in the arts is not considered.
Their approach is based on the belief, debunked by more rigorous approaches to psychology, that the most important thing in building something is to be correct in one's plan—if a designer can simply come to the right understanding of reality, them it can be applied straightforwardly. However, the reality is that the knowledge created by their field is far more contingent than they might like to believe, and that the tiny details one can feel at the ends of their fingers become incredibly important in making a product that works.
Never are the authors self aware about their approach's issues—fundamentally, it is one that does not do research by talking to people, doesn't take their evaluations of their situation at seriously, and is focused on manipulating them towards "wellbeing" rather than helping and empowering them. Not once do the authors point to a single example of a technology that they hold as a paragon that people use voluntarily.
The authors themselves encapsulate the issue of the work at the start of the last chapter:
"Ten years ago, if you'd told me that technology would get involved in things as personal as mindfulness, happiness, and wellbeing, I would have covered my ears and said, "Make it go away." In fact, that's kind of what I did when Rafael first proposed the antecedents of this book."
These are not people with a positive vision for the future of computing. This is the unholy offspring of the rotting corpses of HCI and Positive Psychology, pantomiming rituals of faux-rigor at an underspecified question for 250 pages as if there is a gun to its head.
I think digital technologies that help our lives are extremely important. I hoped that this book could tell me a bit about new methods for achieving that goal, perhaps, or visions of an empowering digital future. Nothing could be further from the case.
This book is, more than anything, an epistemological hijacking. The authors advocate underpowered research methods for quantifying emotion, cribbed from the social sciences, that are far weaker than qualitative methods, and wholly unsuitable for designing complex interactive systems.
More than anything, the book is a condescending and tedious survey course of a field ("positive psychology") replete with studies that fail to replicate. To make things that make people happy, and to do so "responsibly," we are told, we must surely have a multidisciplinary team that includes a positive psychologist and a mental health researcher. The idea that understandings of happiness and human emotion may be better developed for practical application in the arts is not considered.
Their approach is based on the belief, debunked by more rigorous approaches to psychology, that the most important thing in building something is to be correct in one's plan—if a designer can simply come to the right understanding of reality, them it can be applied straightforwardly. However, the reality is that the knowledge created by their field is far more contingent than they might like to believe, and that the tiny details one can feel at the ends of their fingers become incredibly important in making a product that works.
Never are the authors self aware about their approach's issues—fundamentally, it is one that does not do research by talking to people, doesn't take their evaluations of their situation at seriously, and is focused on manipulating them towards "wellbeing" rather than helping and empowering them. Not once do the authors point to a single example of a technology that they hold as a paragon that people use voluntarily.
The authors themselves encapsulate the issue of the work at the start of the last chapter:
"Ten years ago, if you'd told me that technology would get involved in things as personal as mindfulness, happiness, and wellbeing, I would have covered my ears and said, "Make it go away." In fact, that's kind of what I did when Rafael first proposed the antecedents of this book."
These are not people with a positive vision for the future of computing. This is the unholy offspring of the rotting corpses of HCI and Positive Psychology, pantomiming rituals of faux-rigor at an underspecified question for 250 pages as if there is a gun to its head.
December 28, 2021
Very interesting book, fascinating topic.
However, I had much higher expectations, mostly unmet because of the writing style and the lack of cohesion.
The whole book is subdivided into far too many sections and subsections. The text is often confusing and without a point, even if the extreme subdivision makes you look for it in every subsection.
A good point I must notice is that the writing style is pretty much consistent over the whole book, despite there being two authors.
If you are drawn to this topic, this may still be the best and complete reference, but I hope we'll see better books in the years to come.
However, I had much higher expectations, mostly unmet because of the writing style and the lack of cohesion.
The whole book is subdivided into far too many sections and subsections. The text is often confusing and without a point, even if the extreme subdivision makes you look for it in every subsection.
A good point I must notice is that the writing style is pretty much consistent over the whole book, despite there being two authors.
If you are drawn to this topic, this may still be the best and complete reference, but I hope we'll see better books in the years to come.
June 16, 2017
Hard to get into (not most compelling writing ever) but super good overview of applying positive psychology to technology. How do we see if products produce wellbeing? Covers empathy, compassion, meditation and more in depth.
A few takeaways I had:
- Meditation is an extremely well established practice to reduce stress
- Compassion research not as well defined, lots of good surveys to use and learn from in book, not too much neuroscience study in the book.
-Field is young
A few takeaways I had:
- Meditation is an extremely well established practice to reduce stress
- Compassion research not as well defined, lots of good surveys to use and learn from in book, not too much neuroscience study in the book.
-Field is young
April 5, 2024
interesting at a high level with some thought provoking and inspiring ideas that intuitively make sense; however, cautious about the basis of some assertions, particularly in light of the replication crisis
January 5, 2022
Being fairly new to the area of Positive Computing, I found the book insightful in the way it explains how technology can influence and support wellbeing.
February 1, 2015
Positive Computing is an important book in a few different ways.
Firstly, it is jointly written by a computer scientist and a social scientist, so it does a good job at surveying the relevant psychological literature through the eyes of a technology professional (or a computer scientist).
Secondly, it suggests a framework for identifying the gaps that still exist and need to be studied further.
And thirdly, it offers a substantive contribution to the creation of a new community of professionals. A joint community of designers, developers, engineers, and researchers who understand the psychological determinants of human wellbeing and how to apply them.
Firstly, it is jointly written by a computer scientist and a social scientist, so it does a good job at surveying the relevant psychological literature through the eyes of a technology professional (or a computer scientist).
Secondly, it suggests a framework for identifying the gaps that still exist and need to be studied further.
And thirdly, it offers a substantive contribution to the creation of a new community of professionals. A joint community of designers, developers, engineers, and researchers who understand the psychological determinants of human wellbeing and how to apply them.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews