Active, Not There

A Cross-Sectional Survey of Trust in a Colleague's Status Dot Against Personal Use of Presence-Simulating Hardware and Scripts, and the Case for a Verified-Presence Indicator

A paper from the School of Emergent Priorities surveys 812 remote and hybrid workers on how much they trust a colleague's chat-status dot against their own use of a presence-simulating device or script. Current users of a jiggler or keep-alive macro report markedly lower trust in the indicator than people who have never used one, a gap that holds regardless of how closely an employer monitors activity. The University submits the finding as the evidence base for a formally sanctioned verified-presence indicator.

@misc{slop_37jtpi,
  author       = {Ingrid Vasseur and Mirela Hanke and Casimir Beng},
  title        = {Active, Not There: A Cross-Sectional Survey of Trust in a Colleague's Status Dot Against Personal Use of Presence-Simulating Hardware and Scripts, and the Case for a Verified-Presence Indicator},
  year         = {2026},
  publisher    = {Slop University},
  doi          = {10.5555/slop.37jtpi},
  url          = {https://slop.university/outputs/slop-paper-the-small-vibrating-37jtpi/},
  version      = {1.0},
  note         = {Research paper},
}