research-article

Let Us Say What We Mean: Towards Operational Definitions for Techno-Spirituality Research

Author:

Elizabeth BuieAuthors Info & Claims

CHI EA '19: Extended Abstracts of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

Paper No.: alt16, Pages 1 - 10

https://doi.org/10.1145/3290607.3310426

Published: 02 May 2019 Publication History

Abstract

Recent years have seen a dramatic increase in HCI research on the use of technology in spiritual practices and environments. Some of these works cover spiritual/transcendent experiences associated with these contexts, but strikingly few of them describe in any way the experiences they studied or aimed to support, let alone give definitions of the terms they use for those experiences. Even fewer papers cite any literature on the relevant experiences. We have to ask: How do the authors understand the experiences their work is aiming to observe, invite, or support? How do they know when and whether they have observed, invited, or supported the kinds of experiences they target? How do they know what they are studying? This paper discusses the presence and absence of definitions of terms for spiritual/transcendent experiences in HCI research, and of citations of relevant literature. It speculates about possible reasons for the oversight, proposes some definitions aimed at filling the gap, and suggests an approach to operationalizing some of the proposed definitions.

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Kozubaev SHowell N(2024)"Tuning in and listening to the current": Understanding Remote Ritual Practice in Sufi CommunitiesProceedings of the 2024 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference10.1145/3643834.3661593(2633-2648)Online publication date: 1-Jul-2024
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Laato SRauti SLaato AAl‐Msallam SJung SSutinen EHamari J(2024)Sacred Spaces in the Digital Age: Perceptions of Lutheran Christian Priests on Augmented Reality at Holy SitesProceedings of the 2024 ACM International Conference on Interactive Media Experiences10.1145/3639701.3656326(256-267)Online publication date: 7-Jun-2024
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Markum RWolf SClaisse CHoefer MCiolfi LHogan TDöring TJenkins Tvan Dijk JHuron SLi ZCoyle DSigner B(2024)Mediating the Sacred: Configuring a Design Space for Religious and Spiritual Tangible Interactive ArtifactsProceedings of the Eighteenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction10.1145/3623509.3633353(1-22)Online publication date: 11-Feb-2024
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Index Terms

Let Us Say What We Mean: Towards Operational Definitions for Techno-Spirituality Research
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Human computer interaction (HCI)
    1. HCI theory, concepts and models

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cover image ACM Conferences

CHI EA '19: Extended Abstracts of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

May 2019

3673 pages

ISBN:9781450359719

DOI:10.1145/3290607

General Chairs:
Stephen Brewster
University of Glasgow, Scotland, UK
,
Geraldine Fitzpatrick
TU Wien, Austria
,
Program Chairs:
Anna Cox
University College London, UK
,
Vassilis Kostakos
University of Melbourne, Australia

Copyright © 2019 ACM.

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Published: 02 May 2019

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CHI '19: CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

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Cited By

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https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3643834.3661593
Laato SRauti SLaato AAl‐Msallam SJung SSutinen EHamari J(2024)Sacred Spaces in the Digital Age: Perceptions of Lutheran Christian Priests on Augmented Reality at Holy SitesProceedings of the 2024 ACM International Conference on Interactive Media Experiences10.1145/3639701.3656326(256-267)Online publication date: 7-Jun-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3639701.3656326
Markum RWolf SClaisse CHoefer MCiolfi LHogan TDöring TJenkins Tvan Dijk JHuron SLi ZCoyle DSigner B(2024)Mediating the Sacred: Configuring a Design Space for Religious and Spiritual Tangible Interactive ArtifactsProceedings of the Eighteenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction10.1145/3623509.3633353(1-22)Online publication date: 11-Feb-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3623509.3633353
Wolf SFriedrich PHurtienne J(2024)Still Not a Lot of Research? Re-Examining HCI Research on Religion and SpiritualityExtended Abstracts of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613905.3651058(1-15)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
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