Although Personal Informatics stresses the importance of “self”-awareness and “self”-knowledge in collecting personal data, a description of the “self,” to which all these knowledge endeavors are addressed, is missing in the current debate. In this article we first review how the different theoretical assumptions that currently inform the design of Personal Informatics tools fail to convey a convincing image of the self, which ought to be quantified by these technologies. We then move on to the outline of a theory of the self that may ground the current discourse in Personal Informatics. Building on this theoretical framework, we propose a set of design guidelines as its implications, which may drive the design of future self-tracking technologies. Finally, we outline a research agenda, organized around such guidelines, in the form of research questions to be addressed in the future.

The COVID-19 pandemic led to dramatic changes in people’s lives. The Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) community widely investigated technology use during crises. However, commercial video games received minor attention. In this article, we describe how video game play impacted the life transformations engendered by the pandemic. We administered a qualitative online survey to 330 video game players who were living in Italy during the lockdown measures. We found that the COVID-19 pandemic altered the participants’ sense of time and space, reshaped both their intimate and wider social interactions, and elicited a wide spectrum of disturbing emotions. Players escaped from this unsatisfying reality into video game worlds, searching for a new normality that could compensate for the unpredictability and dangerousness of the pandemic life, as well as seeking uncertainty in the game environments to balance the flatness of the lockdown everydayness. In doing so, they “appropriated” the gaming technologies, which also led to several unexpected outcomes. Starting from these findings, we propose a model of escapism that points out four ways to escape from reality into video game worlds. Moreover, we outline some design implications that might inspire future strands of research in the field of crisis technologies.

Background: The aim of the study was to compare the level of self-confidence in dealing with problems at school, the attitude towards bullying situations and the recommended strategies to cope with bullying in two samples of pre-service teachers (PSTs). The PSTs were in training to become teachers with special education needs students (SEN) and came from two different countries (Italy and Greece). Methods: A questionnaire survey was made involving 110 Italian and 84 Greek PSTs. Results: The results about self-confidence showed that Greek PSTs had lower outcome expectations and a higher external locus of causality than Italian PSTs. Teachers’ training programs and school preventive intervention were also discussed. Conclusions: Because the participants in this investigation will be teachers in the near future, they require specific training on bullying in general and in students with SEN in particular.

We will outline a theory of agency cast in theoretical psychology, viewed as a branch of a non-eliminativist biology. Our proposal will be based on an evolutionary view of the nature and functioning of the mind(s), reconsidered in a radically subjectivist, radically constructivist framework. We will argue that the activities of control systems should be studied in terms of interaction. Specifically, what an agent does belongs to the coupling of its internal dynamics with the dynamics of the external world. The internal dynamics, rooted in the species' phylogenetic history as well as in the individual's ontogenetic path, (a) determine which external dynamics are relevant to the organism, that is, they create the subjective ontology that the organism senses in the external world, and (b) determine what types of activities and actions the agent is able to conceive of and to adopt in the current situation. The external dynamics that the organism senses thus constitute its subjective environment. This notion of coupling is basically suitable for whichever organism one may want to consider. However, remarkable differences exist between the ways in which coupling may be realized, that is, between different natures and ways of functioning of control systems. We will describe agency at different phylogenetic levels: at the very least, it is necessary to discriminate between non-Intentional species, Intentional species, and a subtype of the latter called meta-Intentional. We will claim that agency can only be understood in a radically subjectivist perspective, which in turn is best grounded in a view of the mind as consciousness and experience. We will thus advance a radically constructivist view of agency and of several correlate notions (like meaning and ontology).

The aim of the research was to study motivations to volunteer, and their relationship with religious orientation in a sample of volunteers working in a Catholic organization. A self-administered questionnaire was distributed to 190 volunteers working in a Catholic organization based in a large city in northern Italy and devoted to ending poverty and situations of marginalization through the promotion of social justice. Of these, 160 (90 females, 70 males) agreed to participate. The main result was that all motivations, except Career, increased with the intrinsic religious orientation. The Social and Career functions increased with the extrinsic-social religious orientation. The Protective and Enhancement functions increased with all religious orientations. The result concerning gender differences showed that the creation of a social network through volunteering and the opportunities to create and maintain a positive relationship with others are more important to women than men. Managers could benefit from these findings to improve the recruitment and retaining of volunteers and to think strategically about the mission and the cultural/religious belief of the organization. The impact of two and a half years of Covid-19 policies, however, remains unclear.