from the I'm-detecting-a-little-stress-from-you dept.
In Switzerland, one in three employees suffers from workplace stress. Those affected often don't realise that their physical and mental resources are dwindling until it's too late. This makes it all the more important to identify work-related stress as early as possible where it arises: in the workplace.
Researchers at ETH Zurich are now taking a crucial step in this direction. Using new data and machine learning, they have developed a model that can tell how stressed we are just from the way we type and use our mouse.
And there's more: "How we type on our keyboard and move our mouse seems to be a better predictor of how stressed we feel in an office environment than our heart rate," explains study author Mara Nägelin, a mathematician who conducts research at the Chair of Technology Marketing and the Mobiliar Lab for Analytics at ETH Zurich. Applied correctly, these findings could be used in future to prevent increased stress in the workplace early on.
[...] The researchers are currently testing their model with data from Swiss employees who have agreed to have their mouse and keyboard behaviour as well as their heart data recorded directly at their workplace using an app. The same app also regularly asks the employees about their subjective stress levels. Results should be available by the end of the year.
However, workplace stress detection also raises some thorny issues: "The only way people will accept and use our technology is if we can guarantee that we will anonymise and protect their data. We want to help workers to identify stress early, not create a monitoring tool for companies," Kerr says. In another study involving employees and ethicists, the researchers are investigating which features an app needs to have to meet these requirements and ensure responsible handling of sensitive data.
Journal Reference:
Naegelin M, Weibel RP, Kerr JI, Schinazi VP, et al.: An interpretable machine learning approach to multimodal stress detection in a simulated office environment. Journal of Biomedical Informatics 2023, 139: 104299, doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbi.2023.104299
(Score: 4, Funny) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Tuesday April 18, @04:06AM (6 children)
Q: As an employee, how much does the impending threat of losing your job to an AI bot stress you?
* Very
* Alarmingly
* What's AI?
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Tuesday April 18, @04:57AM (5 children)
Well, AI is short for Artificial Intelligence, recently implemented in something called GPT- ... oh wait, it's no longer "impending". Sorry about that, AI tends to accelerate while you're in the middle of discussing it and considering its impact.
(Score: 4, Touché) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Tuesday April 18, @05:31AM (4 children)
You're right: the job loss is what's impending, not the threat. The threat is there already.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Opportunist on Tuesday April 18, @06:59AM (3 children)
Well, why do you think we're stressed out?
(Score: 3, Funny) by krishnoid on Tuesday April 18, @05:35PM (2 children)
I prescribe one 30-45 second hug. Preferably with a human, so you can decrease their stress too. Past that, I got nothing.
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Wednesday April 19, @01:11PM (1 child)
Please don't touch me, humans are stressing enough at a distance, I sure as all hell don't need them any closer than absolutely necessary.
(Score: 3, Funny) by krishnoid on Wednesday April 19, @04:34PM
Ok, I'll leave it on the desk here.
You know what, I'll annotate it for up to 24x refills, and please make sure you are embraced around the lower back evenly with two appendages. Before I write you a new one, you'll have to pee in this cup to make sure your kidneys are breaking it down properly. You know, because I'm not actually a doctor.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by acid andy on Tuesday April 18, @12:15PM
They're gonna take away one of the last subtle forms of rebellion we had: hitting the keys and mouse buttons almost hard enough to break them.
So is this what's coming, velocity sensors in the keys? These aren't musical instruments, you know. Why not save money and just make 'em use pressure sensitive graphics tablets and slurp up the pressure readings as they do their work?
I can guess what happens when the HR software reports higher stress levels. If they're not ready to get rid of those workers, it'll be teambuilding, mandatory social events after work, and probably increased micromanagement. I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader how some employees will respond to such measures.
Master of the science of the art of the science of art.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by krishnoid on Tuesday April 18, @06:27PM (1 child)
How about an app that imports its click and motion model from a local file (downloaded separately), makes its analysis, and displays it locally, while *not* linking to network libraries and *not* accessing any networking system calls. No saving data, only screenshots through the OS mechanisms. It's provided as an employee *benefit*, and is opt-in only. Mention of its use at the manager level or above is categorized as harassment, reportable, and actionable.
If you want to look at your own stress analysis, you can do so, but that's it. Eliminate the ability for *anyone* to "handle" the "data", sensitively or otherwise. If the rank-and-file eventually start to feel comfortable using it, sure, they can and they can even say they feel comfortable enough to centrally aggregate and analyze it.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 19, @11:28AM
That is exactly why I still download blank tax forms and fill them out manually with pen.
I don't feel comfortable at all giving such confidential info to untrusted parties. They get anonymized data with no identifying info on it.
(Score: 4, Funny) by MostCynical on Tuesday April 18, @07:36PM
traditionally, the keyboard or mouse have been a great indicator of stress.
If someone slammed the keyboard against their desk, or threw their mouse across the room, you knew they were stressed.
No fancy extra software or hardware required (just a new keyboard, or, once, a new desk - some old keyboards are quite strong)
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex