ReDD Workshop Information
Thank you for your interest in the Reduce Digital Distraction workshop! The workshop is an evidence-based and effective way to take control over your digital device use.
If you are curious about the research behind it, have a look at the research section of our website.
On this page, you can read about what happens in a workshop and how (if you opt-in) we use anonymized data to contribute to digital wellbeing research.
Founders
Maureen Freed
Psychotherapist &
mental health consultant
Former Deputy Head of Counselling at the University of Oxford
Dr Ulrik Lyngs
Computer scientist &
cognitive psychologist
Research Fellow at the University of Oxford
What does the ReDD workshop involve?
- The workshop! It takes 2 hours and usually has 8-24 participants. You:
- articulate changes you want to make
- explore effective strategies to help (from tools that remove distracting elements on websites, to ones that remind you of your intention when you open specific apps)
- implement the things most likely to help you
- A ‘Note to Future Me’ where you write down what you want to change and what strategies you want to try. This includes a brief ‘Digital Wellbeing Check’, asking how you‘ve been feeling about your use up until the workshop.
- One month later, a Digital Wellbeing Check helps you reflect on what you tried and what worked.
What information is collected?
- Workshop: Text written on virtual post-its about digital challenges and goals.
- Digital Wellbeing Checks: Basic device use information and demographics, notes on what strategies to try (and how useful they were), and scores on the Brief Digital Self-Control Scale and Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale.
At the end of the workshop, you can opt-in to allow anonymised information to be used to contribute to research on digital wellbeing.
What happens to my data if I allow it to be used for research?
We anonymise text data by removing or changing any information that could identify you. We don't store any permanent link between your personal identity and the research data. The survey data are stored on our secure server in Frankfurt (hosted with Digital Ocean). All research data and records will be stored for at least 3 years.
What happens to the results?
Information from the workshop helps us improve it, for the benefit of future participants. It may also contribute to human-computer interaction research, and be published in venues such as the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (see our latest research for an example).
What if something goes wrong?
If a person is ever considered to have suffered harm through participation in research, the University of Oxford has arrangements in place to provide for compensation. If you have a concern about any aspect of this project, please contact Dr Ulrik Lyngs, who will do his best to answer your query. If you remain unhappy or wish to make a formal complaint, you may contact the University of Oxford’s Departmental Research Ethics Committee on ethics@cs.ox.ac.uk.
Contact details
If you have any questions or would like to discuss the workshop further, please contact:
Dr Ulrik Lyngs
Co-founder of the Reduce Digital Distraction Project
Email: ulrik@redd-project.org / ulrik.lyngs@linacre.ox.ac.uk
Tel.: +45 31 62 05 51