The story about my thesis defense via Zoom

The 5^th of June 2020 I defended my thesis ‘The digitalised work environment: Health, experiences and actions’ at the School of Health and Welfare, Jönköping Uni. Ironically, with respect to the title of my thesis, the thesis defense was partly hold via Zoom (due to the Covid-19 pandemic obviously). Opponent for this defense was prof. Jan ‘Gulan’ Gulliksen (KTH). Additionally, associate prof. Johan Karltun (Jönköping Uni), associate prof. Gudbjörg Erlingsdottir (Lund Uni) and prof. Ann Bergman (Karlstad Uni) were the members of the examination committee. The opponent, and two of the members of the examination committee participated via Zoom. The audience was both IRL or via Zoom, the later for those who couldn’t or shouldn’t be there IRL due to the Covid-19 pandemic. So, what did it felt like to have the thesis defense via Zoom? For me, I felt like the thesis defense was “for real” even tough some of the interaction was via Zoom. I was not thinking so much about that during the actual defense, just tried to focus on answering the questions. Even though we had checked the link and connection beforehand, some technical struggle still took place… and I couldn’t hear the sound from the opponent or the examination committee after that I had hold my presentation, for a short period of time. But hey, since my thesis focus on technostress, maybe it was part of the plan? Or was it not? However, this scene never disturbed me so much, and actually I was happy to get a short break in the middle of the thesis defense. You may wonder how the defense went? Well, I am happy to tell you that I was approved and can no on call myself ‘Doctor Stadin’. This, despite the fact that my four-year-old daughter took the opportunity to do “ugly faces” in front of the web camera before the examination committee declared their decision. I also had a small defense party afterwards, and even tough there were less guests then it would have been if it wasn’t for the Covid-19 pandemic, the party was “liten men naggande god” (Swedish expression meaning something like “small but delightful”) as one of my sisters expressed it. I really felt celebrated for sure. So, all happy stories to an end (and a new story can start). My new story started yesterday, the 15^th of June, and I am now on officially a member of the HTO-group and will work in the STRIA-project lead by prof. Åsa Cajander.

See you later!

Best Regards,

Magdalena Stadin

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Magdalena Stadin

Post doc researcher Human-Computer Interaction at Uppsala University

Magdalena Stadin, PhD, is a post doc researcher in human-computer interaction in the HTO-group, Uppsala University. Stadins research interest is mainly focused on the digital work environment from a psycho social perspective, and the has conducted studies about this with a quantitative as well as a qualitative study design. Stadin is also a member of the STRIA-project.

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