arXiv subjects

Gilly Leshed

Publications and source records attributed to Gilly Leshed.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Understanding Remote Mental Health Supporters' Help-Seeking in Online Communities

Providing mental health support for loved ones across a geographic distance creates unique challenges for the remote caregivers, who sometimes turn to online communities for peer support. We qualitatively analyzed 522 Reddit threads to understand what drives remote caregivers' online help-seeking behaviors and the responses they receive from the community. Their purposes of posting included requesting guidance, expressing emotions, and seeking validation. Community responses included providing emotional support, suggesting informational strategies, and sharing personal experiences. While certain themes in posts (emotional toll, monitoring symptoms, and prioritizing caregiver well-being) are shared across remote and non-remote contexts, remote caregivers' posts surfaced nuanced experiences. For example, they often rely on digital cues, such as voice, to interpret care receivers' well-being while struggling with digital silence during crises. We discuss the need for supporting communication and information sharing between remote caregivers and receivers, care coordination for crisis management, and design recommendations for caregiver communities.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2024

Beyond Meditation: Understanding Everyday Mindfulness Practices and Technology Use Among Experienced Practitioners

Mindfulness, a practice of bringing attention to the present non-judgmentally, has many mental and physical well-being benefits, especially when practiced consistently. Many technologies have been invented to support solo or group mindfulness practice such as mobile apps, live streams, virtual reality environments, and wearables. In this paper, we present findings from an interview study with 20 experienced mindfulness practitioners about their everyday mindfulness practices and technology use. Participants identify the benefits and challenges of developing long-term commitment to mindfulness practice. They employ various strategies, such as brief mindfulness exercises, social accountability, and guidance from teachers, to sustain their practice. While conflicted about technology, they adopt and appropriate a range of technologies in their practice for reminders, emotion tracking, connecting with others, and attending online sessions. They also carefully consider when to use technology, when and how to limit its use, and ways to incorporate technology as an object for mindfulness. Based on our findings, we discuss expanding the definition of mindfulness and the tension between supporting short- and long-term mindfulness practice. We also propose a set of design recommendations to support everyday mindfulness including such as through the lens of metaphor, reappropriating non-mindfulness technology, and bringing community support into personal practice.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2024

Meditating in Live Stream: An Autoethnographic and Interview Study to Investigate Motivations, Interactions and Challenges

Mindfulness practice has many mental and physical well-being benefits. With the increased popularity of live stream technologies and the impact of COVID-19, many people have turned to live stream tools to participate in online meditation sessions. To better understand the practices, challenges, and opportunities in live-stream meditation, we conducted a three-month autoethnographic study, during which two researchers participated in live-stream meditation sessions as the audience. Then we conducted a follow-up semi-structured interview study with 10 experienced live meditation teachers who use different live-stream tools. We found that live meditation, although having a weaker social presence than in-person meditation, facilitates attendees in establishing a practice routine and connecting with other meditators. Teachers use live streams to deliver the meditation practice to the world which also enhances their practice and brand building. We identified the challenges of using live-stream tools for meditation from the perspectives of both audiences and teachers, and provided design recommendations to better utilize live meditation as a resource for mental wellbeing.

cs.HC↗