"Morale is plummeting among ICE agents over long hours, quotas and public hatred: reports"
Stock image of dark haired woman throwing a bunch of papers in the air. Underneath, the text reads: Call for Papers. Deadline for Full Papers is: February 18th, 2026 (23:59 AoE).
We have published the Call for Papers for #CHIPLAY2026!
CHI PLAY 2026 will take place November 2-5 in York, United Kingdom.
Deadline for Full Paper Submissions is February 18, 2026 (23:59 AoE).
The full call is available here: chiplay.acm.org/2026/full-pa...
@acm-sigchi.bsky.social #chiplay
Was really challenging to participate in this, but I think I was able to pen something real, important, and personal to my experience in AI. Remember that GenAI is not *all* of AI nor all of what it should be.
www.technologyreview.com/2025/12/15/1...
(Crazy to say latter half of my PhD - good time to mention that I passed my qualifiers and am a candidate now, woo!)
Finally uploaded this short paper/rant on conflicting conceptualizations of escapism in games + well-being that I wrote for the healthy escapism workshop at CHI PLAY '25. Thoughts and directions appreciated, especially as I move into the latter half of my PhD work! ndevasia.github.io/files/escapi...
Aeris says "Cloud, why don't you dress up like a girl? It's the only way."
It's the ONLY way.
The UW Center for an Informed Public is looking for postdocs (for 2026-2028) from across diverse disciplines whose research sheds light on the challenges of our modern information environment, promotes civic health, and/or helps people/communities navigate online spaces: apply.interfolio.com/177901
Since I don't think any high schoolers follow me...for parents, if your high school aged kids like to game, send them this study for our gaming book club! I'll buy them a game and they'll play it while testing out some reflection tools that I've built. docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
Fuck Waymo. Long live KitKat.
Just wanted to "so true" re. @stolisomancer.bsky.social's Geekwire article on my paper, specifically: "Video games often have a positive impact on the people who play them. That impact simply doesn’t get a fraction of the press of gaming’s various downsides." Thanks for writing about this!
omg this survey was made for me
me at CHI PLAY (positive)
How do video games shape who we are?
HCDE & @ischool.uw.edu researchers found that 78% of gamers reported life-changing experiences from play—from coping with stress to building identity.
Findings will be presented at @chiplay.bsky.social later this month.
www.washington.edu/news/2025/09...
There's an article about this paper now! Especially in the ✨current political climate✨, I try to remember what games (especially FF7) have instilled in me: hope in times of despair, and that fighting back can defeat the bad guys and their systems of oppression. www.washington.edu/news/2025/09...
Cropped photo of a flyer. Black text on white paper with a shine and a light reflection of the photographer behind. The top lines mention trash room, dumpster, and “Thank you for your cooperation.” The text below reads: “To do the useful thing, To say the courageous thing, To contemplate the beautiful, That is enough for one man’s life.” - T.S. Eliot
The folks who manage our building put a flyer in the elevator every week. Along with the weekly weather and notes about building rules being broken, they often add a quote. This is one I snapshotted a few weeks ago:
Mainstream pundits have instantly sanitized and ignored Charlie Kirk's core political project and its impacts. He has been remembered by the mainstream press as someone they merely disagreed with, a debate me-guy whose words and actions had zero consequences:
www.404media.co/charlie-kirk...
“The problem that Democrats actually need to solve is how to effectively message in an information environment that is designed from the ground up to benefit reactionary narratives. If they don’t figure that out, they’ll end up… dreaming up middling solutions to non-existent problems.” Great article
This kind of rocks. Hopefully it is not AI generated
When I legitimately need to study (like for my general exam) I like listening to bland lo-fi, but sometimes it gets too bland. I also like listening to video game instrumental, but sometimes I get too emotional and it makes me cry. The solution I just found: open.spotify.com/playlist/1M3...
I'm at PAX West! Let me know if you are too :) (and come check out the foundry10 booth in the tabletop free play area)
Luckily I was slouching so hopefully it's not as noticeable as I feel it is haha
Recorded my CHI PLAY presentation video, realized I was wearing my "whiskey is liquid sunshine" shirt the whole time, wondered if I should rerecord it to *not* memorialize me looking like an alcoholic into ACM YouTube for posterity, then gave up and uploaded it anyways
New preprint! A Crowdsourced Megastudy of 12 Digital Single-Session Interventions for Depression in American Adults
What's the best way to help someone overcome depression with just 10 minutes of their time online? We ran a trial (n=7,505) testing 12 diverse interventions.
osf.io/preprints/ps...
Made a silly demo of what I'm working on right now - it's a tool for annotating while gaming, similar to annotating a book. As I mentioned in my last post, it's very inspired by ideas discussed re. critical reflection in The Well Read Game. Feedback appreciated on the MVP! youtu.be/LIdFdVaLWCI
8. This has been a short and honestly rather peevish thread, so if you want read more that has been written in a more equanimous tone, here's a short piece that I coauthored a few years ago, precisely about how we deal with this kind of duplicity.
Please, I beg everyone panicking about “kids these days” to just display the full scale on the y-axis of their (not so) terrifying charts. Oh wait, maybe that story would not sell 🤔 mikemales.substack.com/p/how-to-go-...
Me not writing a paper:
(Oh, and ofc everything by @rowandaneels.bsky.social, who is already tagged in this thread)
- (Iten et al., 2018) and (Yin & Xiao, 2022) re. meaningful choices in narrative games
- (Happ et al., 2013) and (Bopp et al., 2019) re. empathy for/attachment to game characters
@pietervdheede.bsky.social feel free to DM me, I'm fresh off that project and happy to share thoughts/more papers!
