Author Archives: Lana Yarosh

About Lana Yarosh

Svetlana “Lana” Yarosh is an Assistant Professor in the Computer Science & Engineering Department at University of Minnesota. Her research in HCI focuses on embodied interaction in social computing systems. Lana is currently most proud of being one of the inaugural recipients of the NSF CRII award, of her best papers at CHI 2013 and CSWC 2014, and of receiving the Fran Allen IBM Fellowship. Lana has two Bachelors of Science from University of Maryland (in Computer Science and Psychology), a Ph.D. in Human-Centered Computing from Georgia Institute of Technology, and two years of industry research experience with AT&T Labs Research.

Setting Up Automated Video Recording for Evaluating Your System in the Field

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I designed a communication system for families as part of my thesis project (it’s called the ShareTable). During the deployment, I found that it was incredibly valuable to supplement weekly interviews and diaries with automated video recordings of system use. For example, through the diary and interview, I was able to gather that on a particular day the mom and daughter talked to the son using the ShareTable and that the topic of conversation was that he wasn’t feeling well. Interesting as a data point, but not particularly exciting. But, here’s what the same data point looked like when I transcribed the video of this session:

Mom: What’s going on, baby?
Son (age 11): Well, my throat is acting up…
Mom: Awww, well take care of yourself … what else is wrong, sweetheart? … You look like you’re really sad, honey!
Son: I just don’t feel good.
Mom: All right, well listen. I love you … Do you see my hand, holding on to your hand? [Strokes his projected hand]
Son: Yes, I do.
Mom: I love you, baby.
Son: I love you too, mom.
Daughter (age 7): Hey, Bubba. [Also puts her hand on the table]
Mom: There’s my hand. Keep your hand in there, we’re going to do a family handshake, okay? [All three move their hands on the table together]

Much more interesting! And, the video clued me in to the fact that the families were leveraging the camera-projector system provided for the table for creating a sense of metaphorical touch.

Obviously, there are a lot of trust issues in recording video of system use in private settings like the home. It comes down to developing a good protocol with your IRB, developing a trusting relationship with your participant, and answering any of their questions and concerns. In my study, I discussed the issue frankly with the families, stored recorded videos on the machine in their home (not remotely), and let them mark any video session for deletion before the researcher watched it. All in all, it is a bit of a hassle and some participants may never agree to this intrusion, but it was totally worth it for the richness and detail of data I got in the end.

So, if you’re interested in setting up automated video logging for your deployment, here is a simple arrangement that I found worked with minimal need for reinventing the wheel:

  1. Set up a standard webcam in the home, pointing to the area of interest that you would like to have recorded when your system is in use. I just used a Logitech USB camera, but you may find that you need a wireless solution like the Ai Ball.
  2. Download and install Flash Media Live Encoder on the machine that will store the video logs. You will need to know the location of FMLEcmd once it’s installed. If you have a modern operating system, you can just search for it.
  3. Run the FMLE GUI interface. Here you can select, where videos will save (or

    Don’t forget to change the CPU usage if you’re doing anything else with the machine that you’re using for recording.

    stream, if your participants are cool with that) and general features of the video and audio. Now, click on the wrench icon next to the format (see left). I found it really important to set the CPU usage to “Very Low” (it’s “Dedicated” by default), otherwise the recording was actually messing with the other things the system was doing. You may find that there are other settings here that you need to tweak.

  4. Now, in your program, you just need to do a system call to FMLE when you’re ready to start recording. Find and kill the FMLE process when you’re ready to stop. These are common instructions in any language, so you should be able to find out how to do it from your program. Here are quick code bits for doing it in C#:
To Start Recording:
this.fmleProcess = Process.Start(@”<wherever your FMLEcmd is>”);
int hWnd = this.fmleProcess.Handle.ToInt32();
ShowWindow(hWnd, SW_SHOWMINIMIZED);
To Stop Recording:
this.fmleProcess.CloseMainWindow();
this.fmleProcess.Close();

Okay, that’s it! All of the recordings should be saved according to the settings that you set up in the FMLE GUI. With my participants, I asked them to mark any sessions that they wanted deleted, I could identify those recordings by their creation date and time, and delete those without watching.

Hope this helps somebody out there. I’d love to hear about clever way that you record or log system use during field deployment (beyond text system logs).

Addiction to Games: Is It Serious?

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Breaking rules and lying to play more is a sign of addiction.

Addiction to games like Everquest and World of Warcraft has serious consequences for some young people. More recently, serious consequences of addiction has been noted even among players of casual online games such as FarmVille. Though behavioral addiction (e.g., pathological gambling) are being included in the DSM, online addiction and addiction to games are not formally included yet.

I was curious about this and since I’ve been looking at the players of one casual gaming website for kids, Neopets, I just went ahead and asked some questions. I want to emphasize that this is just me being curious, not publishable research, because I did not have any sort of IRB here. I made a single post on the public Neopets forums asking: “I’ve been seeing a few people talking about being ‘addicted’ to Neopets. How do you know if you’re addicted?” I’ll highlight some of the responses here clustered using the Internet Safety Project questions for Online Game Addiction:

  • Do you play compulsively?

I always have neopets open in a tab when I’m online_ I can spend hours playing. I’ve also tried to quit and never been successful. I also tend to spend a lot on money for neocash or plushies for keyquest. :/

  • Do you play for long periods of time (often longer than you had planned)?

Signs of Addiction: You want to go to sleep but your laptop is right beside you with the neopets main page. YOu go on it for another “10 minutes”(What I’m doing right now XD) You go on neopets for 5 hours a day or more(Hmm…. might be me XD)

  • Once online, do you have difficulty stopping?

Lol I’ve tried quitting and cutting down. I spend nearly half my day on neopets everyday. I haven’t missed a day since….. Uh….. oh! Two days in June because I was on vacation and didn’t have net access. And before that.. er.. I can’t remember lol.

  • Do you play as often as you can?

I am on here every day. Sometimes I am on here for sixteen plus hours and other times I am only on here for a couple of hours.

  • Do you sneak or violate family rules in order to play?

Im not “addicted” I just spend at least 4 hours a day on Neo if I can, usually more. Im very involved in the site however I have taken very very long hiatus which was horrible since I missed so much! I told my family the other day that I would have to run away if they ever “compromised” my account.

  • Do you sacrifice real-world things for your online world?

I would wake up and tune out my family and just exist on Neopets. Neopets was negatively affecting my life. My family and I had a small hitch in our lives because of my time spent on Neopets.  At some point though, I changed. Probably when I got iced a few years ago and never could get my account back. I avoided Neopets for awhile, because it upset me so much. But I had taken things too far. I finally came back, and got caught up in the NC stuff there for awhile, and I seriously wasted a LOT of money. I can’t say at some point I won’t go through this same thing again, but I hope now that I’ve been through it, I will recognize it if it begins to happen and pull myself away.

  • Is your school or work suffering because of the time and energy you spend gaming?

Now the problem is that when I can’t handle the pressure of real life (like day before an exam), I rather escape it instead of trying to fix things.

  • Have your sleep patterns changed since you became involved with online gaming? Are you staying up extremely late or getting up in the middle of the night to play?

When you need a 5 hour energy shot the next day because you stayed up all night playing neopets and only got a couple hours of sleep. *drinks 5 hour energy shot*

If you’d like to read more, more anonymized answers are available here. Again, these are all folks who are currently playing the game, none of these people have managed to quit yet. The tendency in these situations is to blame the player for lacking willpower to stop or just being silly. Nobody ever talks about the game designer bearing any responsibility (e.g., this). Yet, games are getting more and more sophisticated at leveraging psychology and the chemistry of addiction to get people to play more. Are we expecting too much of kids and young people to be able to avoid these pitfalls? What can we do to help people find a way out if they become trapped in the cycle of addiction? Who should be responsible for providing these services?

One last thing, I hate to end on a hopeless note. If you or a loved one are facing online or gaming addiction, there are some resources available here. You do not have to be alone!

Being Happy in Grad School

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A demonstration of being happy in grad school. Running through the sprinklers is also advised.

This blog entry is more personal than research. I just moved from Atlanta and I’ll be starting my new job at AT&T Research Labs on August 1st. So, I’m feeling wistful and I wanted to reflect and share just a few pieces of advice to the next generation of Ph.D. students.

I feel that there is a lot of negativity out there about grad school (the 100 reasons not to go to grad school blog, for example) and I certainly agree that it’s not for everyone. I recently had a friend tell me that I’m the only “actually happy person” he knows in a Ph.D. program. I’m sure there are plenty of other happy people, but it’s true that there is a lot of potential for misery in grad school. So, while other guides focus on “getting what you came for” or whatever, I want to share with you 5 practices (developed through much trial and error) that helped me stay happy in grad school:

  • Pick a good conference in your field and go to it every year (including your first year, even if you have to pay for it out of pocket) — when there were times that I thought about quitting (and there were those times), a conference has always brought me the energy, the influx of new ideas, and the wonderful people that I needed to get back in gear. My two chosen conferences are CHI (Human Factors in Computing) and IDC (Interaction Design and Children).
  • Avoid “time shifting” whenever possible — time shifting is when you end up shifting something you need to do today to another day in order to do some piece of work (e.g., “I’ll sleep tomorrow,” “I’ll get in touch with my advisor some other day, today I need to focus on this paper,” etc.). In my experience, time shifting only makes me more stressed out and less productive in the long run. If you need to skip this conference deadline and try for another, then maybe that’s the thing to do.
  • Get to know the people in your program — these folks are not only great to get to know as friends, but also will likely be your colleagues in the years to come. Also, they can commiserate with anything that you’re currently facing so they’re a great source of social support.
  • Have a routine that includes all of the things that are important to you — make a list of what is important to your happiness and make sure that you get a chance to do these things. My list includes things like swimming, hanging out with friends, exploring new places, reading for fun, and yes, research. You may have to set boundaries to make sure that the important things actually make it on your schedule, but it’s totally worth it to your overall level of happiness. I once told my advisor that I would not do certain types of academic activities because it would interfere with my work/life balance. He wasn’t happy at first, but later on accepted it and even said he admired me sticking to my guns on this (but, do pick your battles).
  • Don’t be afraid to ask for help — when you’re struggling or need something, ask for it. I hate asking for help, but I basically went crazy when I tried to handle everything myself. I’ve gotten help from my advisor, my committee members, my lab mates, my roommates, my extended academic family, my biological family, people I’ve met at CoC Happy Hour, and professionals (the Counseling Center at Georgia Tech is free for students, may be the same at your school). Don’t be afraid of looking lame. Sometimes you have to decide whether you want to save your face or your ass and the choice should be clear.

For me, I’m more productive when I’m happy. So, when I plan to “swim, do 8 hours of work, and have dinner with friends,” I actually get a lot more done than when I plan to “work for the next 16 hours.” And, I’m immeasurably happier. Try it and maybe it will work for you.

As a bonus for those readers who are currently going or planning to go to Georgia Tech, here is Lana’s List of 100 Things To Do While You’re in Grad School at Georgia Tech. Enjoy and share your list with me when you make it!