In 2022, @MITDesignAcad and the Hasso Plattner Institute co-created "Designing for Sustainability." This program, funded by the Hasso Plattner Foundation, is a multi-year partnership to drive joint scientific design research in multidisciplinary teams at both institutes.

Watch the full video and learn more about other projects here: https://t.co/uOTBwI21Ir Video courtesy: @MITDesignAcad

Learn more about the project here:

By incorporating physiological data and contextual awareness, the project seeks to enable personalized and responsive interventions that support healthier, more sustainable relationships with technology.

Conventional interventions such as timers and screen time limits — which often overlook emotional state, user intention, and situational context. This research aims to develop adaptive, real-time systems that move beyond static usage caps.

In order to address the growing psychological and behavioral consequences of compulsive digital engagement especially with short-form content, the project critiques the shortcomings of conventional interventions.

alongside the HPI team: Prof. Dr. Falk Uebernickel, Vincent Beermann, Jan Enkmann. The team investigates real-time detection of problematic social media use (PSMU) through physiological and contextual signals.

One of the grants: "Predicting Problematic Phone Use: Contextual and Physiological Indicators for Early Detection", is led by the team of our researchers @medialab including our Master students Sally Ahmed and @kyeshimizu under the supervision from our team's lead @PattieMaes

At 4:30pm ET today, Dec. 18, join us for the next installment of the seminar series hosted by @AHA_MediaLab! The guest speakers will be Maureen Heymans, VP of Engineering in the Learning & Sustainability organization at Google, and Media Lab alum Hayes Raffle, Principal Designer

Congratulations to our PhD student @thecatfangs and all grant recipients of @cosmos_inst !

Deviation Game Credits: Tomo Kihara + Playfool (Daniel Coppen & Saki Maruyama), Kye Shimizu, Jasper Stephenson, Plot Generica, Yu Miyama Learn more about the installation here:

Deviation Game — a co-op party game for two to six players, co-developed by our Master student @kyeshimizu alongside collaborators — will be presented at the @scigallerymel as part of the Distraction exhibition.

You can read all the details of this study in IMWUT paper (open access):

These results suggest that amplifying heart rate signals can improve emotional regulation, but only if the user also has the skills needed to use this information (consciously or unconsciously).

What they found is that this happens, but only in a specific subset of participants—those who also reported on a questionnaire that they frequently use methods like attention to their breathing to regulate their emotions.

Theories of interoception would predict that when participants recieve feedback on their heart rate, they become better at regulating their state of arousal and fear during the horror clips.

Importantly, this was not a neurofeedback study where people tried to change their heart rate — our researchers provided the participants with an easier-to-perceive signal reflecting their actual heart rate.

while they received vibration timed to either their own heart rate, a pre-recorded heart rate, or no vibration, using a Fitbit smartwatch worn on the wrist.

Our research scientists and assistantsMinsol Michelle Kim, Nathan Whitmore, Phoebe Chua, Serena Pei, Malak Abdalla, @PattieMaes tested this in an experiment where they challenged people's emotional regulation with horror movie clips

[New paper!] ❤️⌚️ People who are better at perceiving their heart rate tend to be better at decision making and more emotionally regulated. So what happens if you make someone better at perceiving their heart rate?