Emotions & Thoughts to Action

Thought is Action in Rehearsal

- Sigmund Freud

The Challenge

We humans are easily distracted, and our short attention span hinders our thought process. We fail to acknowledge the blind spots in our thinking and these blind spots make us susceptible to manipulation in tricky situations. We get catapulted into an emotional circuit, possibly taking decisions that range from regrettable to detrimental, without taking stock of what our emotions and thoughts are exactly trying to tell us. This led me to wonder how can we use technology to detect our emotions and thoughts and act more mindfully?

The Potential Applications of the Solution

Emotions are responses that occur in the brain and tend to alter our physical state through a change in expression, voice tone, body language, blood flow, temperature and so on. Once such physicality becomes measurable,  technology can be used to detect and quantify emotions and guide human action. This emotional technology has wide ranging applications and I list some of these possibilities below:

• iExperience Platform

I fathom a crowdsourced content platform which takes a user’s mind state as input and gives recommendations of activities or actions basis other people’s experience of the same mind state. In its early development, the application can start by asking the user what's on their mind and as it gets more sophisticated, it could start by asking how the user was feeling followed by leading questions to arrive at the root cause for his/her emotions. 

This would lead to a large fishbowl of tricky situations people faced, how they felt and how they overcame it. For each story and recommendation the user reviews, the user can also subscribe to the writer as a mentor to support him through his journey. For example – if an individual is struggling financially, the platform would provide recommendations such as attending a fireside chat with other people who have been in debt or signing up on a freelance network such as Upwork to earn some money quickly.

• Organisation Intelligence

Technology can be used to improve emotional intelligence and social relationships for future workforces. Auto analytics helps collect data on individuals’ mood patterns, sleep and stress levels. This data is used to provide real time feedback to employees through a wearable device to use more positive words and tonality. Further analysis of aggregate data can shed light on the organisation’s productivity based on employee’s emotional patterns and help build project teams based on social competencies. This could be particularly useful in consulting or law where individuals  need to coexist through long working hours and new case teams are formed per client.

• Smart Educator

Educators can use emotional technology to identify students struggling with academics, recognise instances of incomprehension and intervene to adjust the teaching approach.  For students, this means education comes to them in a more digestible format as the curriculum now responds to the needs of each unique student, rather than pushing a generalised, standardised approach.

• Augment Patients of Paralysis

Smart sensors can be implanted in the patient’s brain to detect emotions/wants and the signals received could be used to notify a caregiver that the patient needs assistance. With further enhancement of internet of things, these signals could augment other medical devices such as robotic arms, hearing aids etc. enhancing the patient’s independence to carry out day to day activities.

This post will explore the potential of an experience platform to drive constructive action from user’s input on their struggles. 

The iExperience Platform

Let’s consider the case of a college-going girl who is bright, driven & passionate. She is social and confident about her aspirations from life. She wants to get fit but she has a sweet tooth & falls prey to temptation whenever desserts are placed before her. As a result, her effort goes in vain and she finds herself trapped in a loop of restraint & indulgence. She encounters friends in her network who have transformed their bodies and post pictures of themselves on Instagram. She feels disheartened that she’s left behind scrolling social media while others have already realised their goals. Imagine she’s able to get access to stories of weight loss during the time she spends scrolling social media and she’s also able to find a mentor to guide her through the journey.

She is able to discuss her progress, thoughts and constraints with a mentor. As a result, she is more aware of her limitations, she learns that others on this path have come across similar speed breakers too and she is encouraged to take actions that helped her mentor in a similar situation. As a result, she feels more confident and in control of these speed breakers. She begins to exercise sense control on her emotions that help her perceive the same emotions in a more positive and constructive format.

Fig 1 : Storyboard

Fig 2 : Prototype

This platform could provide stories and mentors for various micro and monumental events such as “I got fired, I don’t know what to do next”, “My husband and I are not able to get pregnant”, “I have been feeling unsatisfied at work”, “I was criticised by my boss today”, “My start-up is running low on cash” and so on. 

The 1-Day Experiment

Hypothesis : Individuals are willing to make behavioural changes based on stories of others who have gone through the same experience. 

Methodology : My first step would be reaching out to the founding team of YourDost that was started by IIMB alums. I would request them to provide contacts of 2-3 psychologists to identify the most common problems their patients come to them for. 

I would then reach out to individuals who have already recovered from these problems via YourDost to write about their experience dealing with these problems and support others going through similar issues. With help from the psychologists and YourDost, I would identify new patients who suffer from these common issues. Then, we will send these new patients experiential stories written by recovered patients and encourage them to reach out to the writers for further personal connect. 

Fig 3 : Experiment Methodology

Note : One might be concerned about why would a psychologist agree to put his/her business into jeopardy but the truth is, this platform would serve as a technological support to think better and as a tool that would help the psychologist connect their patients to communities that can help them recover sooner and approach their goals in a more proactive and pragmatic fashion. This way, the psychologist is able to see more patients per month and also gain from more positive patient feedback.

Cost : A psychologist charges between Rs.700 - Rs.1200 per hour of therapy. Therefore, recruiting 3 psychologists at Rs 1000/hour for 3 hours will cost approximately Rs.9000. This rate per psychologist can be negotiated basis the number and duration of patient conversations that the psychologists need to monitor.

Success Metrics : 

1. More than 10% of the email recipients reach out to the writers

2. Psychologist's evaluation of the patient's improvement after the conversation & writer's mind state in case of relapses on a scale of 1-10
3. Patient's evaluation of the conversation and whether he/she would like to continue hearing from his/her mentor on a scale of 1-10
4. Writer's evaluation of the conversation on a scale of 1-10

Given the sensitivity of the problems this technology is looking to solve, it is pertinent that platform owners are able to monitor the quality of content delivered per user. This would require experts in fields such as psychology, education, content development, application development and so forth. Further, it is important to also watch out for inherent biases that may colour the opinions of users, writers and psychologists. 

Next Steps : Should the success metrics be met, I would engage IIMB alums, specifically from the MITR group to write stories about the challenges they faced at IIMB and set up a weekly emailer to students on coping mechanisms. We would encourage weekly conversations with seniors and certified psychologists to track the student's developments. As the conversations pick up pace, I would scale this externally.

I would work more closely with psychologists and their recovered patients to develop a library of stories on more far-ranging topics.