Rutgers News Center

Employers beware: ‘Techno addicts’ may be more liability than benefit

Taking your Blackberry on vacation? Or the business cell phone to your kid’s soccer game? Technology keeps workers connected 24/7. If that sounds like an employer’s dream come true, think again: Employers who encourage nonstop work connections may wind up with liability for contributing to addiction among their staff.

According to Gayle Porter, an associate professor of management at the School of Business–Camden, the relentless pace of techno-enhanced work environments creates a source of stimulation that may become addictive. “Employers rightfully provide programs to help workers with chemical or substance addictions,” Porter said. “Addiction to technology can be equally damaging to the mental health of the worker.”

In a forthcoming paper, co-authored by David Vance, an assistant professor of accounting in Camden, and Nada Kakabadse of the University of Northampton in the United Kingdom, Porter contends that courts have long recognized the duty of employers to protect their employees. That’s why employers will warn workers of dangers that they might not foresee and enforce rules for employee conduct that promote a safe workplace.

Porter suggests that the law may evolve to incorporate technology into that mix. She cites tobacco litigation as a model of how the law evolves over time to find harm; theories put forth in the 1950s, laid the groundwork for the legal decisions in the 1990s onward.

The element of employer manipulation is important to determining liability. “If people work longer hours for personal enrichment, they assume the risk,” Porter said. But if an employer manipulates an individual’s propensity toward workaholism or technology addiction for the employer’s benefit, the legal perspective shifts. “When professional advancement seems to depend on 24/7 connectivity, it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish between choice and manipulation,” she said.

- Michael Sepanic

'Portion distortion' may contribute to expanding waistlines

A Rutgers study reports that today’s consumers are increasingly experiencing “portion distortion.” “It has previously been established that portion sizes of virtually all foods and beverages … have dramatically increased over the last two decades," said Jaime Schwartz, a graduate student in the department of nutritional sciences at Cook College at the time of the study.

The study was designed to determine portion sizes typically chosen by young adults and compare them to a similar study conducted in 1984. Schwartz and co-author Carol Byrd-Bredbenner, professor in the department of nutrition at Cook College, studied 177 young adults who were asked to serve themselves “typical portion sizes” at breakfast, lunch, and dinner from a buffet.

The researchers found that typical portion sizes of foods such as milk on cereal and jelly tended to exceed the amounts in the prior study by more than 25 percent. "With portions being distorted to this degree, it's no surprise that people's waistlines are expanding,” Byrd-Bredbenner said. The good news is that efforts to educate the public to limit certain foods that add excess calories may have been successful. Typical portion sizes of butter, tuna salad and tossed salad and dressing tended to be 25 percent less than the reference portion sizes.

- Michele Hujber

Home video game shows promise for stroke rehabilitation

Rutgers engineers have modified a popular home video game system to assist stroke patients with hand exercises, producing a technology that may one day rival systems 10 times as expensive.The hand rehabilitation system, which costs less than $600, is an example of virtual rehabilitation, which combines virtual reality – computer-generated, interactive visual environments in which users control actions in a lifelike way – with traditional therapy techniques.

Virtual rehabilitation engages patients who may otherwise lack motivation to complete normal exercise regimens.  The system is based on Microsoft’s Xbox video game and Essential Reality P5’s gaming glove that detects finger and wrist motions to manipulate on-screen images. Rutgers engineers made minor modifications to the equipment and created software that delivers two types of finger flexing exercises needed to help recover hand functions in stroke patients.

“Virtual reality is showing significant promise for promoting faster and more complete rehabilitation, but the cost of many systems is still prohibitive for widespread deployment in outpatient clinics or patients’ homes,” said Grigore Burdea, professor of electrical and computer engineering and a noted inventor of virtual rehabilitation technology. “While it’s essential to keep pursuing breakthrough technologies that will initially be costly, it’s just as important that we find ways to make innovative treatments accessible to the many patients who need them.”

- Carl Blesch

NSF awards $3.5M to study effect of timing on learning

A better understanding of the role that timing plays in human learning could lead to improved teaching techniques and alter the trajectories of countless human lives.

Thanks to a $3.5 million National Science Foundation (NSF) grant, with the possibility of an additional $32 million over the next decade, a University of California, San Diego-based interdisciplinary team of scientists, with participation from other teams, are poised to clarify the importance of time in learning. Paula Tallal, Rutgers Board of Governors Professor of Neuroscience and co-director of the Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience (CMBN) at Rutgers University in Newark, will head a team based at Rutgers­­–Newark.

“When you learn the sounds of your language, interact with colleagues and teachers, become proficient at sports or playing a musical instrument, or engage in countless other learning activities, timing plays a critical role in the functioning of your neurons, in the communication between and within sensory and motor systems, and in the interactions between different regions of your brain,” Tallal explained. “The success or failure of interpersonal communication and social interaction using gestures, facial expressions and verbal language also depend critically on exact timing.”

Gary Cottrell, a computer science and engineering professor from UCSD’s Jacobs School of Engineering, is the founder of the Temporal Dynamics of Learning Center as well as its co-director and a participating researcher. Cottrell recruited over 40 researchers from across the United States, Canada, and Australia to participate in the effort. Included in this team are Tallal and three other Rutgers-Newark scientists: Board of Governors Professor of Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience Gÿorgy Buzsáki, professor of neuroscience April Benasich and assistant professor of neuroscience Kenneth D. Harris.

Rutgers-led group lands $2.55M to advance high school biology and math

The National Science Foundation has awarded a $2.55 million grant to Rutgers and two partner institutions to advance high school instruction of biology and mathematics by emphasizing the mathematical methods that underlie modern biology. The five-year grant, led by Rutgers, includes the Consortium for Mathematics and its Applications (COMAP) and Colorado State University.

The project aims to close a gap between math and biology instruction in high school courses by creating materials that address mathematical principles of gene mapping, population trends, and public health and the spread of diseases, including contemporary threats such as bird flu and bioterrorism.  

“Modern biology is increasingly an information science, closely tied to the tools and methods of mathematics,” said Fred Roberts, principal investigator for the grant and director of the university’s Center for Discrete Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science (DIMACS).

“Traditionally, however, students who liked biology may have thought math was irrelevant or too difficult. We need to teach it in a way that engages aspiring biologists,” said Roberts, who is also professor of mathematics. Roberts said that by bringing more biology into the mathematics classroom, the project team expects to get students more excited about the usefulness of mathematics.

- Carl Blesch