A RELAXING JOURNEY: THE USE OF MOBILE PHONES FOR WELL-BEING IMPROVEMENT

The new generation of mobile phones has many additional features -as PDA (Personal Digital Assistant), camera and media playerthat make it a potentially powerful tool for cyber-psychology. The aim of this project is to test this potential by analysing the effectiveness of mobile narratives to improve relaxation and reduce anxiety in a sample of commuters. Mobile narratives, narrated video experienced on mobile phones, are used in this study to perform relaxation exercises aiming at introducing emotional changes in participants, to improve their well-being in everyday life stress situations (Green M. C., Brock T.C., Kaufman G., 2004). The narratives guide the subjects during the exploration of four different areas of a tropical island, proposing different relaxation techniques based both on the “Progressive Muscular Relaxation” protocol (Jacobson, 1938) and the “Authogenic Training” protocol (Schultz, 1977). The project sample is composed of 120 commuters: college students aged between 20-25 years old (60 female and 60 male), recruited on the Varese-Milano local train (70 minute trip). Specifically, the sample has been randomly assigned to four different conditions: Vnar group: who experienced the mobile narrative on a mobile phone during their daily train trip; Nnar group: who experienced video contents only (the beach of a virtual tropical island) on a mobile phone during their daily train trip; Mp3 group: who experienced only the audio contents (the relaxation exercises only) on an mp3 player during their daily train trip; Ctrl group: a no intervention condition. Each participant was administered State, Trait and Presence questionnaires before and after the experience. In the Vnar condition results show a significant anxiety level decrease (p<.001) assessed by Stai State questionnaire. No significant differences were found in other conditions. In Vnar condition results show a significant relaxation increase (p<.001) assessed by Vas questionnaire. No significant differences were found in other conditions. Introduction The new generation of mobile phones has many additional features–such as PDA (Personal Digital Assistant), camera and media player–that explain their success: now it is possible to write text (SMS, Short Message System), to send images (MMS, Multimedia Messaging System), to watch television, and to listen to music. Before the advent of this new technology, Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) was exclusively a verbal communication, but now it is enriched with new contents through effective sensory integration (e.g. audio-video contents) that give mobile communication an emotive value and allows stimulation, in a global way, three of the four senses: hearing, sight, touch. These innovations make the mobile phone a potential powerful tool for cyber-psychology. The aim of this project is to investigate the efficacy of the mobile phone as a positive emotion induction instrument. In this context “emotion” corresponds to phenomena that suddenly arise and involve the whole person (Legrenzi, 1997). The relationship between an event and the individual interest for the event itself generates an emotion. Each emotion is linked to a particular situation, defined as an emotional antecedent, which activates the subject and modifies his reaction (Lazarus, 1966). From this point of view it is important to use a specific narrative to increase the interaction and the emotional elicitation in a subject inside a virtual context. In this particular case the subjects’ emotional answers will be analysed with reference to the presentation of video content on the mobile phone, presented with a specific mobile narrative, created to induce a relaxed sensation in a commuter sample. Narrative, in this sense, is used as a fundamental vehicle for emotion induction (Harvey, 1998) because it allows the subject to improve interaction with the surrounding environment. In order to create a feeling of engagement in a particular virtual environment, Freeman (2003) studied Emotioneering techniques (32 categories). Emotioneering refers to a large body of narrative techniques that can create in the participant a deep sense of presence in the game or in other interactive experiences. Barfiel, Zeltzer, Sheridan and Slater (1995) define Presence as the “participant’s sense of being there” in the virtual environment. Specifically, Lombard & Ditton (1997) analysed the sense of presence as a “perceptual illusion of non-mediation”: through sense of presence, the participant forgets that his environment perception is mediated by new technologies. This concept is fundamental in order to create a deep sense of engagement between the subject and the virtual environment proposed. The concept of sense of presence is used to analyse the engagement level of the participant in a specific task: the higher the sense of presence perceived during an activity, the higher the subject's engagement will be during this activity (Riva, 2004). Usability is the fundamental characteristic that a medium must have to be able to activate a higher sense of presence in the user (Norman, 2004). This concept is related to the importance of technology to be “invisible to user” (Riva, 2004), in order to give to the participant the possibility to concentrate only on the task required rather than on the media used. Sense of presence and narrative are two related concepts: one of the instruments to increase sense of presence in a participant is to use a good narrative (Riva, 2004). Starting from this remark, mobile narrative has been used in the protocol of this study. Mobile narratives, narrated video experienced on mobile phones, are used in this study to perform relaxation exercises aiming at introducing emotional changes in the participant, improving well-being in stressful situations in everyday life (Green M. C., Brock T.C. & Kaufman G., 2004). The narratives guide the subjects during the exploration of four different areas of a tropical island proposing different relaxation techniques based both on the “Progressive Muscular Relaxation” protocol (Jacobson, 1938) and the “Authogenic Training” protocol (Schultz, 1977). The aim of this research is to check if a narrative experience, associated with video content, can influence emotional subject state. This research is the second part of a pilot study (Preziosa, Grassi, Villani, et al, 2005) aimed at analysing the efficacy of mobile narratives implemented on mobile phone to induce a state of relaxation. Authors have decided to replicate this study by adding an Mp3 condition, an audio only content condition, for better understanding the efficacy and the importance of mobile narrative compared with the video only content. In particular, authors want to investigate if mobile narratives that guide subjects in a mediated experience, related to video content presented on mobile phone, could induce emotional changes in a subject. Specifically, authors want to study if a mobile narrative could bring a significant anxiety decrease and improve a deeper sensation of relaxation in the user. Besides, researchers want to understand if mobile narrative induces a higher sense of presence during video presentation. For this reason, anxiety level, relaxation level and sense of presence will also be measured in a condition lacking narrative content. Methods Experimental design This study has a mixed design (4x2). The first independent variable refers to experimental intervention and is measured between subjects on four levels: video and audio content (Vnar); only video content (Nnar); only audio content (Mp3); control group (Ctrl). The second independent variable refers to time as unit of measure (pre and post intervention) with repeated measures analysis. It is a within subjects analysis. In this study four conditions were compared: Vnar (mobile narrative condition): video content of a virtual island associated with audio content; Nnar: video content of a virtual island; MP3: audio content; Ctrl: no intervention group. Dependent variables: • Emotional state dimension; • Emotional trait dimension; • Sense of presence. Sample The sample is composed of 120 subjects (60 female and 60 male), university commuter students, aged between 20-25 (M= 23,27, ±1,38). The sample has been randomly divided into four conditions: Vnar, Nnar; mp3 and Ctrl group; each group is composed of 30 subjects. No difference among groups was found before the intervention. Protocol The experimental protocol aims to increase a relaxed sensation in a commuter sample during their daily train trip. Procedure is organized in four sessions performed during two consecutive days, each one lasting 10 minutes. In Vnar and Nnar conditions video contents present four different parts of a virtual island, two daytime scenes and two nightime scenes, a wave’s sound in background is associated to those experiences. In Vnar condition video contents are associated with audio contents: a narrative guide subject during the island exploration and the fulfilment of the relaxation exercises. In Mp3 condition subject tests only the audio contents. Consecutive video sceneries, in both Vnar and Nnar conditions, are presented along with audio content. Audio contents are the same as in Mp3 condition. Ctrl group had only to complete the questionnaire battery without being administered any intervention.