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Both of us have spent much of our professional careers developing, evaluating, and researching technologies for learning. One interesting thing about these technologies is that they represent an area in which researchers have begun to combine emotions and technology in at least two ways. Despite the focus on STEM, there are at least two areas in which wellbeing measures have already been incorporated. First, at the convergence of affective computing and learning, we see experimental research in the use of emotionally aware, intelligent tutoring systems?systems that recognize and respond to boredom, confusion, and frustration and that promote engagement and resilience (see Calvo & D'Mello, 2011, 2012). We look at affective computing more closely in the next chapter.

Second, at the intersection of education, technology, and mental health, there exists a body of research on various Internet-based and technology-delivered interventions in schools. For example, one program on alcohol education (Champion, Newton, Barrett, & Teesson, 2012; Newton, Teesson, Vogl, & Andrews, 2010) randomly allocated 764 young teenagers from across ten schools to an Internet course or to a standard face-to-face health class. After 12 months, those who did the online course were found to be more knowledgeable, to consume less alcohol, and to have fewer binge-drinking episodes than those who did the face-to-face class. Although digital programs for personal development and wellbeing in schools have been surprisingly slow to take off (particularly in contrast with how much digital attention has been given to math and literacy), we expect to see growth in this area over the next decade as interest (and funding) in technology intersects with that of wellbeing.

With regard to learning that occurs outside of schools, researchers in the area of interaction design for children (IDC) have been pioneering in their attention to factors of wellbeing. Svetlana Yarosh and her colleagues (Yarosh, Radu, Hunter, & Rosenbaum, 2011) surveyed the papers published in each year of the IDC conference from 2002 to 2010 and sought to understand the type of behaviors and qualities the IDC community tried to promote in children. These behaviors and qualities were broadly grouped into social interaction and connectedness, learning, expression, and play, all of which impact on wellbeing. Furthermore, a number of apps for children are intended to promote wellbeing factors specifically. For example, Focus on the Go! and Sesame Street for Military Families are designed to help military children build resilience skills. Emotionary is among a number of apps designed to help kids identify and communicate emotions, and PositivePenguins supports them in challenging their thinking (in the style of cognitive behavioral therapy). For older kids, Middle School Confidential is a high-quality app-delivered comic that deals with confidence and bullying issues. Although such trailblazers represent just the beginning, a research field in positive computing will help support further work in this largely untapped area as the field matures.

Education, economics, and policy can help us to measure or influence wellbeing across a group or population, but these fields do less to explain why variations in wellbeing occur in the first place. To understand this higher-level question, we have to look at how various societal and cultural influences shape our wellbeing and our understandings of it.

Social Science: Wellbeing as a Changing Cultural Construct Shaped by Technology

A purely psychological analysis aims to understand wellbeing as an internal positive state we aim to attain. A sociocultural approach, in contrast, places more focus on how the definition of wellbeing changes over time and across cultures. Technology and Psychological Well-Being (Amichai-Hamburger, 2009) contains a series of essays exploring the relationships from a social sciences perspective. Work in sociology and media studies is critical to helping us understand how technology has already impacted our wellbeing and why.

George Rodman and Katherine Fry's (2009) historical account highlights wellbeing as a historical and cultural construct. The authors focus on wellbeing's relationship to social connections and discuss how the predominant communication technologies of each culture might have influenced its views on concepts and values such as individuality, society, privacy, and wellbeing. For example, the invention of typography in the 1450s introduced major social and economic changes, and, according to Rodman and Fry's reading of Marshall McLuhan, some of the changes were dehumanizing as they reduced the need for face-to-face interactions, but other changes were liberating as they democratized information and raised the sense of self. Certainly we see similar parallels arising with the spread of modern information communication technologies, some of which are elegantly explored in Richard H. R. Harper's book Texture: Human Expression in the Age of Communications Overload (2012).

Social media in particular have made whole new social behaviors possible with both positive and negative consequences to wellbeing. Social media researcher danah boyd, of Harvard and Microsoft Research, points to the life-saving potential provided in parallel with challenges posed by social media with regard to the wellbeing of youth (see her sidebar in this chapter for more detail).

Although economics has helped to uncover the links (or lack thereof) between wealth, technology, and wellbeing, knowing that more wealth or more advanced personal technology hasn't made society much happier doesn't tell us why it hasn't. Perhaps wealth would be a more effective indicator if some other variable were changed. Perhaps technology would have greater positive impact if it were designed differently. The weakness in our current understanding is certainly influenced by the difficulty that exists in isolating variables within such a complex system.

For example, one study that surveyed a cross-section of 22 European countries (Frey, Benesch, & Stutzer, 2007) shows a negative correlation between TV ownership/viewership and wellbeing (more TV time was linked to lower life satisfaction). Another study (Dolan, Metcalfe, Powdthavee, Beale, & Pritchard, 2008) suggests the opposite?that having TV and computers improved self-reported wellbeing measures. A third study (Kavetsos & Koutroumpis, 2011) used a cross-sectional database of 29 European countries and found that those who owned a phone, CD player, and computer and who had an Internet connection were more likely to report higher subjective wellbeing. In this third study, correlation with TV ownership was statistically insignificant.

There is obviously much we need to learn about which technologies can support wellbeing, when, in what circumstances, in what combinations, and why. Ethnographic and anthropological research, historical and sociological inquiry, along with other methods matured by the social sciences will be essential to moving us forward toward this understanding.

Moving away from the social sciences and toward examples of application, we come to business?an area for which investment in wellbeing poses a clear value proposition.

Both of us have spent much of our professional careers developing, evaluating, and researching technologies for learning. One interesting thing about these technologies is that they represent an area in which researchers have begun to combine emotions and technology in at least two ways. Despite the focus on STEM, there are at least two areas in which wellbeing measures have already been incorporated. First, at the convergence of affective computing and learning, we see experimental research in the use of emotionally aware, intelligent tutoring systems?systems that recognize and respond to boredom, confusion, and frustration and that promote engagement and resilience (see Calvo & D'Mello, 2011, 2012). We look at affective computing more closely in the next chapter.

Second, at the intersection of education, technology, and mental health, there exists a body of research on various Internet-based and technology-delivered interventions in schools. For example, one program on alcohol education (Champion, Newton, Barrett, & Teesson, 2012; Newton, Teesson, Vogl, & Andrews, 2010) randomly allocated 764 young teenagers from across ten schools to an Internet course or to a standard face-to-face health class. After 12 months, those who did the online course were found to be more knowledgeable, to consume less alcohol, and to have fewer binge-drinking episodes than those who did the face-to-face class. Although digital programs for personal development and wellbeing in schools have been surprisingly slow to take off (particularly in contrast with how much digital attention has been given to math and literacy), we expect to see growth in this area over the next decade as interest (and funding) in technology intersects with that of wellbeing.

With regard to learning that occurs outside of schools, researchers in the area of interaction design for children (IDC) have been pioneering in their attention to factors of wellbeing. Svetlana Yarosh and her colleagues (Yarosh, Radu, Hunter, & Rosenbaum, 2011) surveyed the papers published in each year of the IDC conference from 2002 to 2010 and sought to understand the type of behaviors and qualities the IDC community tried to promote in children. These behaviors and qualities were broadly grouped into social interaction and connectedness, learning, expression, and play, all of which impact on wellbeing. Furthermore, a number of apps for children are intended to promote wellbeing factors specifically. For example, Focus on the Go! and Sesame Street for Military Families are designed to help military children build resilience skills. Emotionary is among a number of apps designed to help kids identify and communicate emotions, and PositivePenguins supports them in challenging their thinking (in the style of cognitive behavioral therapy). For older kids, Middle School Confidential is a high-quality app-delivered comic that deals with confidence and bullying issues. Although such trailblazers represent just the beginning, a research field in positive computing will help support further work in this largely untapped area as the field matures.

Education, economics, and policy can help us to measure or influence wellbeing across a group or population, but these fields do less to explain why variations in wellbeing occur in the first place. To understand this higher-level question, we have to look at how various societal and cultural influences shape our wellbeing and our understandings of it.

Social Science: Wellbeing as a Changing Cultural Construct Shaped by Technology

A purely psychological analysis aims to understand wellbeing as an internal positive state we aim to attain. A sociocultural approach, in contrast, places more focus on how the definition of wellbeing changes over time and across cultures. Technology and Psychological Well-Being (Amichai-Hamburger, 2009) contains a series of essays exploring the relationships from a social sciences perspective. Work in sociology and media studies is critical to helping us understand how technology has already impacted our wellbeing and why.

George Rodman and Katherine Fry's (2009) historical account highlights wellbeing as a historical and cultural construct. The authors focus on wellbeing's relationship to social connections and discuss how the predominant communication technologies of each culture might have influenced its views on concepts and values such as individuality, society, privacy, and wellbeing. For example, the invention of typography in the 1450s introduced major social and economic changes, and, according to Rodman and Fry's reading of Marshall McLuhan, some of the changes were dehumanizing as they reduced the need for face-to-face interactions, but other changes were liberating as they democratized information and raised the sense of self. Certainly we see similar parallels arising with the spread of modern information communication technologies, some of which are elegantly explored in Richard H. R. Harper's book Texture: Human Expression in the Age of Communications Overload (2012).

Social media in particular have made whole new social behaviors possible with both positive and negative consequences to wellbeing. Social media researcher danah boyd, of Harvard and Microsoft Research, points to the life-saving potential provided in parallel with challenges posed by social media with regard to the wellbeing of youth (see her sidebar in this chapter for more detail).

Although economics has helped to uncover the links (or lack thereof) between wealth, technology, and wellbeing, knowing that more wealth or more advanced personal technology hasn't made society much happier doesn't tell us why it hasn't. Perhaps wealth would be a more effective indicator if some other variable were changed. Perhaps technology would have greater positive impact if it were designed differently. The weakness in our current understanding is certainly influenced by the difficulty that exists in isolating variables within such a complex system.

For example, one study that surveyed a cross-section of 22 European countries (Frey, Benesch, & Stutzer, 2007) shows a negative correlation between TV ownership/viewership and wellbeing (more TV time was linked to lower life satisfaction). Another study (Dolan, Metcalfe, Powdthavee, Beale, & Pritchard, 2008) suggests the opposite?that having TV and computers improved self-reported wellbeing measures. A third study (Kavetsos & Koutroumpis, 2011) used a cross-sectional database of 29 European countries and found that those who owned a phone, CD player, and computer and who had an Internet connection were more likely to report higher subjective wellbeing. In this third study, correlation with TV ownership was statistically insignificant.

There is obviously much we need to learn about which technologies can support wellbeing, when, in what circumstances, in what combinations, and why. Ethnographic and anthropological research, historical and sociological inquiry, along with other methods matured by the social sciences will be essential to moving us forward toward this understanding.

Moving away from the social sciences and toward examples of application, we come to business?an area for which investment in wellbeing poses a clear value proposition.