ABSTRACT
Since it was first identified in 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic has ravaged countries globally. To prevent the rapid spread of the virus, governments around the world have implemented policies such as closing cities and prohibiting gatherings, making direct communication and contact between people difficult. This has not only caused major changes in human life patterns but has also affected the beliefs and assumptions of drama therapists. Compared with that of online psychological counseling, which has been thoroughly researched, the implementation of online drama therapy is still in an exploratory stage. Research has demonstrated that online drama therapy can achieve the same benefits as in-person therapy. Online drama therapy effectively integrates various resources, experiences, and techniques and has the potential to reach out to cross cultural, environmental, and individual borders. Using three-dimensional game technology, therapy can be provided on virtual visual platforms to communicate in a dynamic and visual manner. In addition, online media can be used to overcome geographical limitations, reduce time and economic costs, and enables more clients to receive drama therapy courses. Through the camera, more can be learned about the life of the client, such as their living space and relationships with family members, which helps the therapist to adjust the treatment process. The client's lens is also a window for the therapist to understand their personal life and space. The close-up nature of the screen makes it easier for the therapist to observe the client's facial expressions and potential body language cues, which can be regarded as a form of close communication. This new type of drama therapy uses online platforms as a medium and provides clients with assistance using dynamic images and visual media;however, a lack of analysis and research regarding how online drama therapy should be performed in practice persists. Therefore, this study explored the practical experience of practitioners in drama therapy online groups to accelerate the promotion of online drama therapy. This study had three main research questions: (1) What is the difference between online drama therapy and physical drama work? (2) What are the working methods and strategies of online drama therapy? (3) What are the challenges of online drama therapy? To explore the practical experiences of drama therapists in online groups, this study adopted semistructured in-depth interviews with three drama therapists. The study participants had 5 years of experience in drama therapy and had provided online drama therapy for more than 1 year. The practitioners were all licensed drama therapists: two from the U.K. and one from North America. Their clients included teenagers, children, voluntary clients, college students, youth groups, and adult community groups. After contacting the three research respondents using online messaging, explaining the purpose of the research, and confirming the respondents' wishes, the interview outline was sent by email. The researcher, who was a senior drama therapy and psychological counseling practitioner served as the interviewer, and each semistructured in-depth interview was conducted using an online platform according to the convenience of the interviewee in accordance with epidemic prevention measures. Each interview was approximately 60 minutes long and provided insight into the experience shared in response to the research questions. After data collection, we used thematic analysis to analyze the interview transcripts and used triangulation to compare unified data among coresearchers to improve reliability and validity. The results were as follows: First, the differences between traditional and online drama therapy included that the therapeutic relationship shifted from "presence in a relationship” to "one-way relationship”;participants shifted from closed groups to more open groups;the therapy strategy shifted from interventional to supportive work;group leadership shifted from improvisational to hi hly structured;and the space for the entirety of the therapy shifted from a physical conversation space to a highly anonymous online space. Second, the working methods and strategies used in online drama therapy included: Using imagination and rituals to create a virtual space, using digital media to enhance the self-expression of participants, using real-life materials to strengthen the transformation of virtuality into reality, using images to catalyze role-playing, and promoting self-talk through virtual mirroring. Third, the challenges of online drama therapy included that the online platform limited the possibilities of interaction in theater, the dilemma of instrument theatre creation by verbal or metaphorical supplementation, the mental labor of familiarity at a high concentration and high uniformity, and the challenge of environmental privacy in therapy. The results of this research revealed that: (1) The objective perception experience in the digital work environment reduces the possibility of exploration and transformation of the client's emotional experience. Therefore, online drama therapy is not only a simple transfer of physical drama therapy technique to the computer but influences the essence of the experience. (2) Online drama therapy encourages the client to engage in role-playing and emotional release from a first-person performer position. The client simultaneously occupies a third-person audience position because of the mirroring that occurs on the screen. This process causes the simultaneous mental states of clients as both performers and audience members. (3) Online drama therapy practitioners must enhance clients' understanding of each other's behavior using the guidance of highly structured activities and language, and at the same time, they must consider the client's ability to create spontaneously. Therefore, practitioners must direct and exhibit rich imagination. However, thinking about the themselves as shown through the screen to create an aesthetic experience and having to consider the relationship between the image and the psychology of the client using logical reasoning causes a high degree of psychological labor for practitioners. Three recommendations are proposed by the researcher, based on the findings of the study. First, how practitioners should balance trauma intervention and emotional support in a digital environment is an ethical matter that requires further investigation. Second, training model should be designed that promotes a new type of online drama therapy that enhances drama therapists' ability to use digital technology and new media, improving the editing and directing ability of practitioners in image analogy and logical derivation and deepening the exploration and integration of clients' perceptual and rational experiences. Third, attention should be paid to the high degree of psychological labor that online drama therapy causes practitioners. Being aware of the sense of isolation and limitation caused by screen work, reducing performance anxiety related to work effectiveness, and undertaking self-adjustment and relaxation are necessary. Finally, through the interpretation of practitioners' practical experiences in this study, practical reference material for the application of online drama therapy can be expanded. We also hope that online drama therapy can be a "virtual vaccine,” offering the possibility of rehabilitating the body and mind among individuals suffering because of the COVID-19 pandemic. © 2023, National Taiwan Normal University. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
Ambient noise causes annoying difficulty for listeners, especially in online learning and work-from-home environments such as during the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim of this work was to employ the neural network to mitigate such ambient noise in the online environment. The software was designed, implemented, and tested on 4 types of noise. The algorithm used was a fully connected network. The results indicated that the standard fully connected network might not be an effective solution for a specific situation. Nonetheless, the processing time was very low, making it possible for real-time application on standalone devices. The implementation using leaky ReLu, creating leaky networks, offered slightly better results in English speeches, i.e. an average of 1.382 and 0.4389 in the PESQ and STOI, respectively. The Thai leaky networks, on another hand, exhibited an average of 3.111 and 0.7096 in PESQ and STOI, respectively. © 2022 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic is the largest virtual experience for online work and employee engagement in the world. Millions of employees have been required to spend extended periods of time working on digital platforms such as Zoom, Microsoft Team, and Skype. However, the nature of this work has resulted in a number of negative implications, such as lengthy work hours, virtual meetings, and the constant pressure to check and respond to business-related emails. In addition, several employees felt obligated to stay online to demonstrate that they were not avoiding their work responsibilities, which contributed to their psychological stress. In this research, a questionnaire was utilized to assess remote work throughout the COVID-19 pandemic's spread. The questionnaire consisted of four axes: work intensification, employee engagement and online presence, adapting to new working techniques, and demographic aspects of the respondents. According to the results, the abrupt change from physical to online work patterns increased work intensity, online presence, and job instability. We also observe that the transition to new methods of working from home is proceeding well. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
ABSTRACT
Inclusive employment opportunities for individuals living with disabilities have been an ongoing issue in society, creating barriers and challenges for this community. Digital assistive technologies (DAT) are, and continue to be, helpful tools in aiding in this inclusivity, but they have not always been accessible to all. The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, where online work became the "new normal", has bought this into sharp focus, giving individuals access and the ability to utilize different online tools that support individuals living with various disabilities in doing work. To better understand the current context concerning DATs and remote working for individuals living with disabilities, we conducted a scoping review in 2021/2022. We identified relevant papers that aided in identifying validated digital assistive technologies. Our study aims to continue supporting individuals living with disabilities to access the technology needed to join, or remain within, the workforce and work towards dismantling barriers that prevent this. © 2023 Owner/Author.
ABSTRACT
Workers from a variety of industries rapidly shifted to remote work at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. While existing work has examined the impact of this shift on office workers, little work has examined how shifting from in-person to online work affected workers in the informal labor sector. We examine the impact of shifting from in-person to online-only work on a particularly marginalized group of workers: sex workers. Through 34 qualitative interviews with sex workers from seven countries in the Global North, we examine how a shift to online-only sex work impacted: (1) working conditions, (2) risks and protective behaviors, and (3) labor rewards. We find that online work offers benefits to sex workers' financial and physical well-being. However, online-only work introduces new and greater digital and mental health risks as a result of the need to be publicly visible on more platforms and to share more explicit content. From our findings we propose design and platform governance suggestions for digital sex workers and for informal workers more broadly, particularly those who create and sell digital content. © 2022 Owner/Author.
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Confinement during the coronavirus crisis led to the need for forced teleworking—total or partial—in those work sectors where it was possible. One of them was the media, where they had to combine face-to-face work with online work. Media such as television had to adopt formulas based on technology to develop their work, to present programs, and to contact their information sources virtually. One of the main resources used was the videoconference. The application of this technological tool for interviews or television debates turned the living room of journalists and news sources into a makeshift set. The objective of this paper is to analyze the role played by technology in the strategies developed by the different public and private television channels in Spain to overcome the situation and continue broadcasting. The methodology of the research is based on the analysis, through case study, of the television channels La 1 and La 2 of TVE (public) and Antena 3, La Sexta, Telecinco, and Cuatro (private). As the main results, we can highlight that many television programs have been broadcast from the presenters' and collaborators' own homes. Others were temporarily stopped being broadcasted because the conditions were not suitable for recording and it was not possible to work virtually. In other cases—as TV news—, on-set activities and videoconferences were combined, resulting in a mixed face-to-face and virtual format. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
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Remote work has become increasingly popular and important after the spread of COVID-19, but its impact on the financial market is in dispute. Using a unique dataset of analyst visits in China and multiple regression, we examine the impact of remote work on the financial market by comparing the market reaction to analysts' online and offline visits. Results show that online visits have a significantly greater impact on stock prices than offline visits, as discussion depth, information sharing, and information dissemination are enhanced. Additionally, online visits can predict the changes in funds' holdings and firms' future performance. Overall, our findings suggest that remote work improves the information environment of the financial market during COVID-19.
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Purpose This study aims to offer a bibliometric analysis of the already substantial and growing literature on global virtual teams (GVTs). Design/methodology/approach Using a systematic literature review approach, it identifies all articles in the Web of Science from 1999 to 2021 that include the term GVTs (in the title, the or keywords) and finds 175 articles. The VOSviewer software was applied to analyze the bibliometric data. Findings The analysis revealed three dialogizing research clusters in the GVTs literature: a pioneering management information systems and organizational cluster, a general management cluster and a growing international management and behavioural studies cluster. Furthermore, it highlights the most cited articles, authors, journals and nations, and the network of strong and weak links regarding co-authorships and co-citations. Additionally, this study shows a change in research patterns regarding topics, journals and disciplinary approaches from 1999 to 2021. Finally, the analysis illustrates the position and centrality in the network of the most relevant actors. Practical implications The findings can guide management practitioners, educators and researchers to the most meaningful clusters of publications on GVTs, and help navigate and make sense of the vast body of the available literature. The importance of GVTs has been growing in the past two decades, and Covid-19 has accelerated the trend. Originality/value This study provides an updated and comprehensive systematic literature review on GVTs. To the best of the authors' knowledge, it is also the first systematic literature review and bibliometry on GVTs. It concludes by suggesting future research paths.
ABSTRACT
We studied the transition of an applied sport psychology training program at a public U.S. university from a face-to-face mode to a virtual mode in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. We aimed to identify challenges of this transition for supervisors and student consultants and best practices for virtual consultancy. This autoethnographic case study involved interviews with three program supervisors, ten student consultants, and one college coach. We also examined researcher observations and lived experiences during the transition. A blended ethnographic and codebook thematic analysis was undertaken. We identified two superordinate challenges: (a) program challenges and (b) consulting challenges. We also identified three superordinate best practices: (a) supervisor best practices, (b) student consultant best practices, and (c) best practices in sport psychology delivery. These findings can usefully inform efforts by individual consultants and applied programs at universities to adopt virtual modes of consultancy.
ABSTRACT
As the societal impacts of COVID-19 progress, so do the workplace and business challenges the pandemic has brought on. It is now crucial to conduct user testing to measure and optimize the usability of corporate Intranets under pandemic conditions. This paper suggests and validates an integrated approach for intranet remote usability evaluation validated by user testing in a work-from-home context during a pandemic. The main contribution of the current research is the discovery of some user preferences specific to work-from-home workers during a pandemic not previously addressed in the literature on intranets.
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The World Health Organization's (WHO) coronavirus disease dashboard has recorded over 207 million confirmed infections and over 4 million deaths. There has been an increasing vulnerability in cybersecurity amongst businesses, gov-ernments and individuals worldwide because the COVID-19 pandemic has led to additional online activities. Accordingly, many people have turned to online work whilst the world is locked down. Thus, warnings have been issued by cybersecurity agencies that the number of cyber threat actors is increasing, and that they are improving in terms of stealing money, personal information and intellectual property. Opportunities for cybercrimes have increased, and COVID-19 is an effective lure. New methods for adverse artificial intelligence (AI)-empowered cyberattacks have been developed, or will be in the near future, using various weaponisations of AI under the COVID-19 umbrella. For this reason, this study reviewed and summarised how and when the most recent cyberattack trends can successfully exploit COVID-19 as a context for attack. Additionally, a summary of the state of knowledge of adverse AI is given, and its potential within the COVID-Themed security threats, including defenses, is discussed. © 2021 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
This study aimed to identify the influence of workplace cyber ostracism on employee online work engagement and employee mental well-being with the mediating roles of remote work challenges such as loneliness, procrastination, work-home interference, and ineffective communication. As amidst lockdown due to COVID-19, the data was collected from 303 respondents through an online questionnaire that was distributed in virtual groups among friends, relatives, and other fellows who were working in the private sector organizations of Pakistan. The hypotheses were tested using the partial least square structural equation modeling PLS-SEM technique. The findings of this study showed that workplace cyber ostracism has a positive and significant impact on employee online work engagement and employee mental well-being. Moreover, results also demonstrated that loneliness, ineffective communication, procrastination, and work-home interference positively and significantly mediate the relationship between workplace cyber ostracism, employee online work engagement, and employee mental well-being. Furthermore, discussion, implications, and limitations were also discussed in this research article.
Subject(s)
COVID-19 , COVID-19/epidemiology , Communicable Disease Control , Humans , Ostracism , Pandemics , WorkplaceABSTRACT
We are living in difficult times. Since March 2020 the normal way of life has been interrupted by a worldwide pandemic, Covid-19. Apart from the illnesses' effect on human health, lives of every living person have been altered significantly. Working from home has become a norm for those who can. Online learning, social and work-related gatherings on-line, socially distanced private and public interactions with others, all have become a norm in society. Challenging times result in hardships, difficulties, and disruptions but they also provide opportunities for innovation, creativity, and out-of-the-box solutions. The current times are no different. One area of innovation has been just-in-time manufacturing of personal protective equipment (PPE). Throughout the first several months of the pandemic there was a significant spike in the need for PPE so that health-care service providers could provide service and care to Covid patients without jeopardizing personal safety. Available resource stocks were depleting as new infections rose sharply. During this time people and companies with manufacturing expertise stepped up to help with the process of making PPE including masks, face shields, and other devices as well as critical life-saving equipment such as ventilators. Just as large manufacturing corporations repurposed their facilities to manufacture PPE equipment, individuals used home-based 3-D printing technology to make batches of vital PPE products to supply to local health-care facilities. This paper explores that effort as a case study of distributed innovation in the face of a global emergency. In this paper, we evaluated the knowledge base that was developed as a result of the effort to produce PPE, collated information that is openly available for future developers to use, reviewed the issues that need to be considered by new manufacturers of PPE, and identified all the important lessons learned. This paper also charts a path demonstrating how to successfully design and fabricate PPE that meets requirements for use by the medical community. This case study can be used by students in design classes to replicate the process of PPE development as well as develop new ideas of improvement that will help us in future. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2021
ABSTRACT
There have been many reflections, both individual and collective within our Institutes, on the effects on our work with patients caused by COVID-19 and the requirement to move suddenly from the setting of our own consulting rooms to working with patients online (see also, the previous issue of this Journal). This paper focuses on what we have learned from these experiences that can add to our knowledge about the role of the setting in analytic work. Drawing on Bleger's (1967) seminal paper highlighting the usual setting as a mute projection carrier for primitive wishes and affects, the paper explores how different patients have reacted to the loss of the analyst as the guardian of the setting and in particular as an embodied presence. Some key questions and challenges for both patients and analysts during the pandemic, when 'the setting begins to weep', are explored.
Il y a eu beaucoup de réflexions, à la fois individuelles et en groupe au sein de nos Instituts, sur les effets du Covid-19 sur notre travail avec les patients et sur l'obligation de passer soudainement du cadre de notre salle de consultation au travail avec nos patients en ligne (voir également le numéro précédent de ce Journal). Cet article se concentre sur ce que nous avons appris de telles expériences qui puisse s'ajouter à notre connaissance en ce qui concerne le rôle du cadre dans le travail analytique. M'appuyant sur l'article fondamental de Bleger (1967) - qui souligne que le cadre habituel est le porteur silencieux des projections d'affects et de souhaits primaires - l'article explore comment différents patients ont réagi à la perte de l'analyste en tant que gardien du cadre et en particulier, en tant que présence incarnée. L'article explore quelques questions clés et défis des patients et des analystes durant la pandémie, « quand le cadre a commencé à pleurer ¼.
Ha habido muchas reflexiones, tanto individuales como colectivas al interior de nuestros Institutos, sobre los efectos causados por el COVID-19 en nuestro trabajo con pacientes, y la necesidad de moverse repentinamente desde el encuadre en nuestros propios consultorios a trabajar con pacientes en modalidad virtual (ver también la edición previa de esta Revista). El presente trabajo se focaliza en aquello que hemos aprendido de estas experiencias que puede enriquecer nuestro conocimiento sobre el rol del encuadre en el trabajo analítico. Tomando como base el trabajo seminal de Bleger (1967) en el que se subraya el encuadre usual como portador de proyecciones silenciadas para deseos y emociones primitivas, el trabajo explora cómo diversos pacientes han reaccionado a la pérdida del analista como guardián del encuadre, y en particular como presencia corpórea. Se exploran algunas preguntas y desafíos claves para ambos, paciente y analista, durante la pandemia, cuando 'el encuadre comienza a llorar'.
Subject(s)
COVID-19 , Humans , SARS-CoV-2ABSTRACT
Parents' emotional management was highly required during the COVID-19 lockdown, as juggling as their own job moved online and with being a parent of a child whose school was online proved to be a challenge for many. Our sample was restricted to parents who had to work online from their homes while their children had to attend school online, as external imposed conditions. The present study was based on Mayer and Salovey's theory and we aimed to investigate the relationship between parents' emotional intelligence and their ability to manage their emotions during this period, hypothesizing that a higher emotional intelligence and well-developed emotional management abilities contribute to better adjustment to everyday challenges, thus contributing to keeping levels of exhaustion low. The double role played by these adults strained their resources, therefore we were also interested in their level of burnout after almost a year spent in a home turned into office and school. We also investigated the participants' level of flourishing, as described by Ed Diener, as these changes impacted differently on every parent's well-being. The analysis of the data obtained offered us the possibility of issuing a series of recommendations for parents' well-being in such a situation, as the prospect of continuing to work and learn online in future seems very real. The need to set clear boundaries between the roles played in these settings emerged as a main objective of future therapeutic interventions based on positive psychology.