by Selina Allerstorfer -

Impulse #6 – Overlays Exhibition

It’s crazy that our Overlays Exhibition has already been over since Tuesday, but since then I’ve had some time to review the whole process and the exhibition itself.

I was part of the speaker team, so in addition to planning and implementing my own projects that were exhibited as well as the Portfolio Machine, we also had to coordinate the entire exhibition itself and keep track of the organization. That was often not easy and involved a lot of stress and long nights. But I think the effort and stress paid off, because it was a successful exhibition with a lot of positive feedback. I learned so much about teamwork, project management and exhibition design, and I am sure this will help me in my future career. During this whole process I also realized that organizing exhibitions is something I really enjoy. However, most importunately this whole exhibition and its process gave me some new impulses and directions for what I want to do in my master’s thesis.

I was part of three projects that were exhibited: The Poisonous Twin (game), BÖRG (interactive projection mapping) and the Portfolio Machine. Looking back at these projects, I realized all of them had a strong haptic interface and where not just another only screen-based experience. And I think this is the main reason why I enjoyed working on them so much. I’m a crafty person and I like to work with my hands and that is exactly what we did in all of these three projects: from cutting, painting, building a mountain out of Styrofoam and then cover it with papier-mâché, building little mushrooms out of fimo, soldering, printing cd covers to 3D-printing our cd player for the Portfolio Machine. The combination of working analog and digital is what I enjoy the most, especially in a time where we are staring at our screens too much anyways. And I think not every idea needs to live exclusively on one.

My initial idea for my master’s thesis was to create a digital webspace/creative playground for low-pressure and non-goal-oriented creativity. However, after experiencing my projects in a physical exhibition, I realized that creating just another webspace/digital environment might not be exactly what I want to do. Or at least it should not be the only part of my workpiece. I am interested in finding a way to combine digital and analog elements for my project, because I think it is quite nice to hold something physical in your hands after working on a project for such long time.

Even though this might take me back few steps in my thesis process, it is important to me to rethink my workpiece and approach. Right now, I feel kind of unhappy and unsure about my idea and project. And I guess already starting with this feeling might not be the best starting point for my master’s thesis. My next step is a step back; to brainstorm again about the direction of my thesis. I think it is necessary now because I want to be excited and confident about my master’s thesis.

AI was used to check spelling and grammar.

by Selina Allerstorfer -

#2.02 Designing for Focus in an Age of Distraction

When I sit down to do work, I often only find myself deep in a rabbit hole of Reels or TikToks or reorganizing my phone, only after 30 minutes into the task. And to be honest even while working on this blog post I got distracted several times by my phone. This is why I decided to explore the topic of distraction in a digital life but I think it is also broadly relevant, since I feel like a lot of people struggle with getting distracted easily these days.

Are we living in an attention crisis?

There is a rising discourse around attention crisis, brain rot and digital burnout, since our days are increasingly fragmented by notifications, being constantly online and temptation of endless scrolls. In his book Stolen Focus, Johann Hari, talks about the effects of this crisis such as reduced productivity, heightened stress levels and even a weakening of our capacity to build deep and meaningful relationships. [1] A study from Microsoft says that our attention span shrank from 12 seconds in 2000 to 8 seconds nowadays, leading to humans having a shorter attention span than a goldfish. [2]

On average, people spend 4.5 hours a day on their phones [3], with 2.5 of those hours dedicated to social media. [4] Big tech companies like Meta and Google generate revenue by maximizing user engagement, turning out attention into a profitable business model. As a result, we get bombarded with dopamine-driven feedback loops that make it extremely hard to put the phone away to concentrate on a single task. [5]

Spending so much time on social media and doom scrolling for hours also affects people. In October 2024 “Brain Rot” was chosen for the Oxford Word of the Year. Brain Rot refers to the cognitive decline and mental exhaustion experienced by individuals, particularly adolescents and young adults, due to excessive exposure to low-quality online materials, especially on social media.“ [6]

Brain rot is an emerging concern among adolescents and young adults navigating today’s tech-saturated word. Marked by symptoms such as brain fog and reduced concentration, this condition seems to worsen with excessive screen time and constant exposure to trivial online content, ultimately contributing to a decline in cognitive function. [6]

Creative professionals like designers, writers, artists, musicians need uninterrupted time to enter a state of flow, where ideas can surface and evolve without constant context-switching. But even with productivity tools, focus apps, and “Do Not Disturb” settings, our smartphones still act like behavioral magnets. They promise us connection, innovation, and escape and they’re designed to be hard to ignore. Notifications, dopamine loops, and habit-forming UX patterns pull us away from the present moment, often without us realizing it.

So, the central question guiding my prototype this semester is:
How might a tangible interface reduce smartphone-related distractions for creative professionals?

The Concept: A Lamp That Helps You Focus

Rather than building yet another app to solve the problem, I want to explore a physical, ambient object that supports intention and presence in a gentle, non-coercive way. My prototype will be a lamp/phone dock – a small, aesthetically calming object that lives on your desk and invites you to temporarily “put the phone away” without demanding rigid rules or screen-time shaming.

The lamp will produce a gentle, ambient light when the phone is in the dock; it may change color gradually to show how much time was spent in focused mode. The lamp may respond softly by changing its color temperature, dimming slightly, or providing a quite auditory cue if the phone is taken out too often. These feedback loops are intended to raise awareness, encourage behavior, and support the user’s initial goal of remaining focused on their job rather than to punish.

Why a Tangible Interface?

I’m interested in how tangible interaction, physically placing the phone somewhere, seeing a change in your environment, can help ritualize focus in a way that’s more embodied and emotionally resonant than tapping a digital button.

What’s next?

In my next blogpost I want to look at some theories and frameworks such as:

  • Theory of Flow
  • Calm Technology
  • Persuasive Design

After getting into those theories and frameworks I am going to start with the first simple prototype.

My goal isn’t to eliminate distractions entirely, that’s unrealistic and probably undesirable. Instead, I’m curious about how design can create moments of pause. How can we introduce friction in a respectful, aesthetic, and emotionally intelligent way? How might we design tools that gently invite reflection, rather than enforce rules?

Literature

[1] Johann Hari, Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention – and How to Think Deeply Again (New York: Crown Publishing, 2022)

[2] Microsoft Canada Consumer Insights Team. Attention Spans: Consumer Insights. Spring 2015. Toronto: Microsoft Canada.

[3] Fabio Duarte, “Time Spent Using Smartphones (2025 Statistics),” Exploding Topics (blog), June 5, 2025, https://explodingtopics.com/blog/smartphone-usage-stats.

[4] Josh Howarth, “Worldwide Daily Social Media Usage (New 2025 Data),” Exploding Topics (blog), June 5, 2025, https://explodingtopics.com/blog/social-media-usage.

[5] Shehzad Batliwala Do Mgm, “The Attention Crisis: A Visionary’s Perspective on the Stolen Focus Epidemic,” Medium, September 10, 2023, https://medium.com/@visionarydoc/the-attention-crisis-a-visionarys-perspective-on-the-stolen-focus-epidemic-eff6692abbf9.

[6] Ahmed Mohamed Fahmy Yousef et al., “Demystifying the New Dilemma of Brain Rot in the Digital Era: A Review,” Brain Sciences 15, no. 3 (March 7, 2025): 283, https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci15030283.