Use of Mobile Devices in Social Situations
Vainio, Juhani (2015)
2015
Vuorovaikutteinen teknologia - Interactive Technology
Informaatiotieteiden yksikkö - School of Information Sciences
This publication is copyrighted. You may download, display and print it for Your own personal use. Commercial use is prohibited.
Hyväksymispäivämäärä
2015-01-26
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:uta-201502091064
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:uta-201502091064
Tiivistelmä
Use of mobile devices may have a negative effect on face-to-face interaction in social situations. This can happen when ignoring other people in a social situation by attending to your phone instead. This thesis explores what kind of mobile technology usage could improve human-to-human interaction in social situations.
In a focus group study (n=14), three behavioral and three technological solutions were evaluated as use cases. The participants favored a solution where people would alter their behavior so that they would just ignore their mobile devices in social situations. Two technological solutions where mobile devices would support human-to-human interaction or automatically restrict usage in social situations were considered to be useful to some extent. Using mobile technology only as a social tool in social situations was considered a potential behavioral solution, but a solution of not having a mobile device with you was not. The least favored was a technological solution where mobile devices would be explicit and proactive participants of social interaction.
Based on the results, it is plausible that mobile technology could be improved, by support or by restrictions, to go better with social situations. People may approve some level of automation in social situations, but there also are certain dangers for designers to be careful about. If the intention of technology is to have a positive effect on human-to-human interaction, it should be carefully investigated whether it has the effect that was intended.
In a focus group study (n=14), three behavioral and three technological solutions were evaluated as use cases. The participants favored a solution where people would alter their behavior so that they would just ignore their mobile devices in social situations. Two technological solutions where mobile devices would support human-to-human interaction or automatically restrict usage in social situations were considered to be useful to some extent. Using mobile technology only as a social tool in social situations was considered a potential behavioral solution, but a solution of not having a mobile device with you was not. The least favored was a technological solution where mobile devices would be explicit and proactive participants of social interaction.
Based on the results, it is plausible that mobile technology could be improved, by support or by restrictions, to go better with social situations. People may approve some level of automation in social situations, but there also are certain dangers for designers to be careful about. If the intention of technology is to have a positive effect on human-to-human interaction, it should be carefully investigated whether it has the effect that was intended.