Mobility is the Message: Experiments with Mobile Media Sharing

This thesis explores new mobile media sharing applications by building, deploying, and studying their use. While we share media in many different ways both on the web and on mobile phones, there are few ways of sharing media with people physically near us. Studied were three designed and built systems: Push!Music, Columbus, and Portrait Catalog, as well as a fourth commercially available system – Foursquare. This thesis offers four contributions: First, it explores the design space of co-present media sharing of four test systems. Second, through user studies of these systems it reports on how these come to be used. Third, it explores new ways of conducting trials as the technical mobile landscape has changed. Last, we look at how the technical solutions demonstrate different lines of thinking from how similar solutions might look today. Through a Human-Computer Interaction methodology of design, build, and study, we look at systems through the eyes of embodied interaction and examine how the systems come to be in use. Using Goffman’s understanding of social order, we see how these mobile media sharing systems allow people to actively present themselves through these media. In turn, using McLuhan’s way of understanding media, we reflect on how these new systems enable a new type of medium distinct from the web centric media, and how this relates directly to mobility. While media sharing is something that takes place everywhere in western society, it is still tied to the way media is shared through computers. Although often mobile, they do not consider the mobile settings. The systems in this thesis treat mobility as an opportunity for design. It is still left to see how this mobile media sharing will come to present itself in people’s everyday life, and when it does, how we will come to understand it and how it will transform society as a medium distinct from those before. This thesis gives a glimpse at what this future will look like

Using Auto-Ordering to Improve Object Transfer between Mobile Devices

People frequently form small groups in many social and professional situations: from conference attendees meeting at a coffee break, to siblings gathering at a family barbecue. These ad-hoc gatherings typically form into predictable geometries based on circles or circular arcs (called F-Formations). Because our lives are increasingly stored and represented by data on handheld devices, the desire to be able to share digital objects while in these groupings has increased. Using the relative position in these groups to facilitate file sharing could facilitate intuitive interfaces such as passing or flicking. However, there is no reliable, lightweight, ad-hoc technology for detecting and representing relative locations around a circle. In this thesis, we present three systems that can auto-order locations about a circle based on sensors standard on commodity smartphones. We tested two of these systems using an object passing task in a laboratory environment against unordered and proximity-based systems, and show that our techniques are faster, more accurate, and preferred by users

The Future of Connection : Serendipity and Control in Interpersonal Communication Tools

This foresight project explored the contemporary trends and tensions inherent in people's experiences with and using interpersonal communication tools. A standard foresight process was overlaid with an experiential lens in order to provide technology designers with useful insights. The outcomes of this project include four tools intended for designers of interpersonal communication applications. These tools include a map of experiential tensions, a landscape of contemporary behaviour, a set of four future scenarios and implications of each, and finally a set of ten reflection questions intended to provoke critical thought about the choices designers make about the balance between serendipity and control in interpersonal communication tools

A location-based communication platform: integrating file sharing with interpersonal contact

Gemstone Team FLIP (File Lending in Proximity)Sharing on the Internet, even among computing devices in close proximity, is both inefficient and inconvenient. Online services and websites do not take advantage of easily obtainable geo-locational data that can improve sharing. We at Team FLIP have extended an existing mapping system called TerpNav with functionality that allows proximate users to interact and collaborate while sharing digital information. This study demonstrates both the feasibility of and demand for a more efficient and interactive method to exchange information among proximate networks of people

This American Suburb: Fossil Fuels, Personal Misconceptions, and Loss of Community

How did we come to live this way? The modern suburb has become synonymous with the American dream and yet its inception is still rather new. This work examines the creation of this way of life thanks to the ready availability of cheap fuels and questionable modes of thinking. In light of the energy crisis these vast expanses of homes may not be able to sustain themselves after the peak consumption of oil. In light of this possibility, the author questions what these people will be missing since the sense of community has all but been lost in these areas and personal isolation continues to increase

Texting laws and cell phone users: motivations for texting while driving

ABSTRACT Legal scholars, academics, and industry researchers have indicated that using cell phones when driving is among the most dangerous hazard faced by motorists today. This relatively new technology is embedded in the lives of most people, at all times of the day, including when behind the wheel of a car. Harvard and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration researchers have exposed the dangers of cell phones and driving, but a solution to curtail the problem has yet to be found. This study seeks to understand the motivations and mediating factors affecting texting and driving law compliance by cell phone users. I conducted a survey that gathered preliminary data that was used to create an outline for two focus groups. The survey results showed that 18 to 21 year old undergraduates are highly knowledgeable (92 percent) about texting and driving laws, receive the majority of this information from friends, parents, and news sources, and have experienced, seen, or heard at least one negative story about texting and driving. The two focus groups explained the knowledge and motivations further. Participants reported a high degree of self-efficacy when multitasking with digital devices. This, coupled with what the participants perceived to be ineffective laws, prompted increased usage and deficient self-regulation. This project reveals how a digital native’s hyper usage of mobile communication devices combined with texting and driving laws that are poorly crafted has created an atmosphere where texting and driving is neither constrained by laws or self-regulation

Sound based social networks

The sound environment is an eco of the activity and character of each place, often carrying additional information to that made available to the eyes (both new and redundant). It is, therefore, an intangible and volatile acoustic fingerprint of the place, or simply an acoustic snapshot of a single event. Such rich resource, full of meaning and subtleness, Schaeffer called Soundscape. The exploratory research project presented here addresses the Soundscape in the context of Mobile Online Social Networking, aiming at determining the extent of its applicability regarding the establishment and/or strengthening of new and existing social links. Such research goal demanded an interdisciplinary approach, which we have anchored in three main stems: Soundscapes, Mobile Sound and Social Networking. These three areas pave the scientific ground for this study and are introduced during the first part of the thesis. An extensive survey of the state-of-the-arte projects related with this research is also presented, gathering examples from different but adjacent areas such as mobile sensing, wearable computing, sonification, social media and contextaware computing. This survey validates that our approach is scientifically opportune and unique, at the same time. Furthermore, in order to assess the role of Soundscapes in the context of Social Networking, an experimental procedure has been implemented based on an Online Social Networking mobile application, enriched with environmental sensing mechanisms, able to capture and analyze the surrounding Soundscape and users' movements. Two main goals guided this prototypal research tool: collecting data regarding users' activity (both sonic and kinetic) and providing users with a real experience using a Sound-Based Social Network, in order to collect informed opinions about this unique type of Social Networking. The application – Hurly-Burly – senses the surrounding Soundscape and analyzes it using machine audition techniques, classifying it according to four categories: speech, music, environmental sounds and silence. Additionally, it determines the sound pressure level of the sensed Soundscape in dB(A)eq. This information is then broadcasted to the entire online social network of the user, allowing each element to visualize and audition a representation of the collected data. An individual record for each user is kept available in a webserver and can be accessed through an online application, displaying the continuous acoustic profile of each user along a timeline graph. The experimental procedure included three different test groups, forming each one a social network with a cluster coefficient equal to one. After the implementation and result analysis stages we concluded that Soundscapes can have a role in the Online Social Networking paradigm, specially when concerning mobile applications. Has been proven that current offthe- shelf mobile technology is a promising opportunity for accomplishing this kind of tasks (such as continuous monitoring, life logging and environment sensing) but battery limitations and multitasking's constraints are still the bottleneck, hindering the massification of successful applications. Additionally, online privacy is something that users are not enthusiastic in letting go: using captured sound instead of representations of the sound would abstain users from utilizing such applications. We also demonstrated that users who are more aware of the Soundscape concept are also more inclined to assume it as playing an important role in OSN. This means that more pedagogy towards the acoustic phenomenon is needed and this type of research gives a step further in that direction.O ambiente sonoro de um lugar é um eco da sua atividade e carácter, transportando, na maior parte da vezes, informação adicional àquela que é proporcionada à visão (quer seja redundante ou complementar). É, portanto, uma impressão digital acústica - tangível e volátil - do lugar a que pertence, ou simplesmente uma fotografia acústica de um evento pontual. A este opulento recurso, carregado de significados e subtilezas, Schafer chamou de Paisagem-Sonora. O projeto de investigação de carácter exploratório que aqui apresentamos visa o estudo da Paisagem-Sonora no contexto das Redes Sociais Móveis Em-Linha, procurando entender os moldes e limites da sua aplicação, tendo em vista o estabelecimento e/ou reforço de novos ou existente laços sociais, respectivamente. Para satisfazer este objectivo foi necessária uma abordagem multidisciplinar, ancorada em três pilares principais: a Paisagem-Sonora, o Som Móvel e as Redes Sociais. Estas três áreas determinaram a moldura científica de referência em que se enquadrou esta investigação, sendo explanadas na primeira parte da tese. Um extenso levantamento do estado-da-arte referente a projetos relacionados com este estudo é também apresentado, compilando exemplos de áreas distintas mas adjacentes, tais como: Computação Sensorial Móvel, Computação Vestível, Sonificação, Média Social e Computação Contexto-Dependente. Este levantamento veio confirmar quer a originalidade quer a pertinência científica do projeto apresentado. Posteriormente, a fim de avaliar o papel da Paisagem-Sonora no contexto das Redes Sociais, foi posto em prática um procedimento experimental baseado numa Rede Social Sonora Em-Linha, desenvolvida de raiz para dispositivos móveis e acrescida de mecanismos sensoriais para estímulos ambientais, capazes de analisar a Paisagem-Sonora envolvente e os movimentos do utilizador. Dois objectivos principais guiaram a produção desta ferramenta de investigação: recolher dados relativos à atividade cinética e sonora dos utilizadores e proporcionar a estes uma experiência real de utilização uma Rede Social Sonora, de modo a recolher opiniões fundamentadas sobre esta tipologia específica de socialização. A aplicação – Hurly-Burly – analisa a Paisagem-Sonora através de algoritmos de Audição Computacional, classificando- a de acordo com quatro categorias: diálogo (voz), música, sons ambientais (“ruídos”) e silêncio. Adicionalmente, determina o seu nível de pressão sonora em dB(A)eq. Esta informação é então distribuída pela rede social dos utilizadores, permitindo a cada elemento visualizar e ouvir uma representação do som analisado. É mantido num servidor Web um registo individual da informação sonora e cinética captada, o qual pode ser acedido através de uma aplicação Web que mostra o perfil sonoro de cada utilizador ao longo do tempo, numa visualização ao estilo linha-temporal. O procedimento experimental incluiu três grupos de teste distintos, formando cada um a sua própria rede social com coeficiente de aglomeração igual a um. Após a implementação da experiência e análise de resultados, concluímos que a Paisagem- Sonora pode desempenhar um papel no paradigma das Redes Sociais Em- Linha, em particular no que diz respeito à sua presença nos dispositivos móveis. Ficou provado que os dispositivos móveis comerciais da atualidade apresentam-se com uma oportunidade promissora para desempenhar este tipo de tarefas (tais como: monitorização contínua, registo quotidiano e análise sensorial ambiental), mas as limitações relacionadas com a autonomia energética e funcionamento em multitarefa representam ainda um constrangimento que impede a sua massificação. Além disso, a privacidade no mundo virtual é algo que os utilizadores atuais não estão dispostos a abdicar: partilhar continuamente a Paisagem-Sonora real em detrimento de uma representação de alto nível é algo que refrearia os utilizadores de usar a aplicação. Também demonstrámos que os utilizadores que mais conhecedores do fenómeno da Paisagem-Sonora são também os que consideram esta como importante no contexto das Redes Sociais Em-Linha. Isso significa que uma atitude pedagógica em relação ao fenómeno sonoro é essencial para obter dele o maior ganho possível. Esta investigação propõe-se a dar um passo em frente nessa direção

Vista: September 15, 2016

https://digital.sandiego.edu/vista/1762/thumbnail.jp

Collaboration and Conflict in Transnationally-Dispersed Zimbabwean Families

Approximately one quarter of Zimbabwean adults left their country of birth during the past twenty years. These sojourners are increasingly dispersed as tightening immigration regimes in preferred destinations and fluctuating global opportunities lead them to places with fewer historical links to Zimbabwe. This dispersive process fractures many families between multiple international locations. Nevertheless, the idea of family remains centrally important to diasporans, who work with relatives around the world to care for children and elders, to acquire important documents like passports, and to prepare for an eventual return home. Following from performative and relational theorizations of kinship, this dissertation argues that collaborative projects are crucibles in which families are forged and reconfigured. This exploration of how dispersion shapes family life deploys three analytical lenses: history, space and technology. Contemporary journeys are historically linked to a century of dispossession and labor-migration in Southern Africa. Colonial governments used onerous “bioinformational regimes” to subjugate Africans and profit from their labor. Today, former colonial powers deploy similar technologies against descendants of subjugated populations in order to restrict access to opportunity that was produced and spatialized through colonial processes. Concurrently, contemporary diasporans build on the “transferable skills” received from previous generations of sojourners. For instance, they use “spatial subterfuge” and “collaborative parenting” to create families of choice—families which may not conform to either indigenous ideals or immigration regimes. Each of the many places where diasporans live is imbued with unique structures of opportunity and oppression. These localized social and economic conditions powerfully influence migrant outcomes and shape how they are able to engage in family projects. People in wealthy countries like Canada and the UK have more economic power than relatives in South Africa or Botswana. Women also find more plentiful opportunities than their husbands and brothers, while younger diasporans tend to fare better than parents and elder siblings. Emergent economic differences may upset expectations about how money and power should be distributed in families. Such disjunctures—combined with the challenge of negotiating overwhelming family needs in the context of scarcity—often leads to conflict between relatives. Distance also results in “separate development” as family members in various locations develop individuated friendships, routines, experiences and even beliefs. These new dimensions of life may be poorly understood by loved ones far away. Today, internet-mediated communications technologies are enabling people in dispersed families to salvage some of this lost relational immediacy. Social media like Facebook enable a degree of passive, contextual monitoring; while group chats on platforms like WhatsApp allow multinational conversations to unfold much as they do over the course of a leisurely weekend visit. New discursive registers like the “meme” even allow pluralistic discussions about important questions of collective interest, as everyone with a claim on being “Zimbabwean” creatively weighs in on the meaning of this identity, and as Zimbabweans of various backgrounds who live in divergent spaces debate whether the spoils of migration are worth its dangers and sacrifices. This dissertation accordingly examines how families negotiate the marked challenges of prolonged separation and international dispersion, and how these efforts relate to negotiations of identity and belonging in the broader Zimbabwean diaspora. These interlinked questions of collaboration and conflict, continuity and change, proximity and distance are similarly important in many other migrant communities, as increasingly restrictive immigration regimes and the fluctuating global economy shape who is able to move and where they may settle