In my recent article “The Distraction of Technology: Working the Problem” I explored some initial thoughts on why we are using our mobile devices in any and every environment (especially church), what this means with respect to what we want, and how it’s modifying our behavior. The conversations sparked in the comments as well as on twitter and IM have been great.

I’ve been looking for research into the psychology and technology at work here, and have come up with some starters to share. If you know of other resources, please post them in the comments.

Phrases that seem google worthy to get at this information:
Persuasive Technology
Cognitive Science
Captology

Links are categorized into:
Books
Blogs and Websites
Universities
Others

Books

Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life by Winifred Gallagher
http://www.amazon.com/Rapt-Attention-Focused-Winifred-Gallagher/dp/1594202109/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1241875912&sr=8-1

The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman
http://www.amazon.com/Design-Everyday-Things-Donald-Norman/dp/0465067107/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1241875973&sr=1-1

Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things by Donald Norman
http://www.amazon.com/Emotional-Design-Love-Everyday-Things/dp/0465051367/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_b

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell
http://www.amazon.com/Blink-Power-Thinking-Without/dp/0316010669/ref=wl_it_dp?ie=UTF8&coliid=I2OGLJR4NFGHUQ&colid=2XL88QALLKOF8

Mobile Persuasion: 20 Perspectives of the Future of Behavior Change by B.J. Fogg
http://www.amazon.com/Mobile-Persuasion-Perspectives-Future-Behavior/dp/0979502527/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1241876436&sr=8-1

Persuasive Technology: Using Computers to Change What We Think and Do by BJ Fogg
http://www.amazon.com/Persuasive-Technology-Computers-Interactive-Technologies/dp/1558606432/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1241876436&sr=8-2

The Ubiquitous Persuaders
http://www.amazon.com/The-Ubiquitous-Persuaders/dp/B001T4XTOK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=digital-text&qid=1241791298&sr=1-1

The Hidden Persuaders by Vance Packard
http://www.amazon.com/Hidden-Persuaders-Vance-Packard/dp/097884310X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1241878000&sr=8-1

Why We Make Mistakes: How We Look Without Seeing, Forget Things in Seconds, and Are All Pretty Sure We are Way Above Average by Joseph T. Hallinan
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001S59CNC/ref=kinw_tu_sims_2

How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer
http://www.amazon.com/How-We-Decide/dp/B001OI2ZIC/ref=pd_sim_kinc_1

Blogs and Websites

Pew Internet & American Life Project
http://www.pewinternet.org/

Tierney Lab - John Tierney at The New York Times
http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/

Don Norman
http://www.jnd.org/

Nielsen Norman Group
http://www.nngroup.com/

BJ Fogg
http://bjfogg.com/

Enrique Allen
http://enriqueallen.com/

Captology Notebook
http://captology.stanford.edu/notebook/

Universities

Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab
http://captology.stanford.edu/

Northwestern University Collabolab
http://collabolab.northwestern.edu

University of Colorado at Boulder - Institute of Cognitive Science
http://ics.colorado.edu

Cognitive Science Society
http://cognitivesciencesociety.org/index.html

Others

William James
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_James

Sigmund Freud
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freud