The role of digital technologies during relationship breakdowns

Relationship breakdowns are undoubtedly difficult. Access to and use of technology can exacerbate the situation. In our networked society, shared lives generate vast amounts of shared digital data which can be difficult to untangle, whilst social media can provide an outlet to emotions that can take a public and often persistent form. In this paper, we report on a qualitative study that considered the role of technology in the process of a relationship breaking down. Four main themes emerged in our findings: communicating about the separation, change in social status, shared digital assets, and moving on. Opportunities for design are identified in reducing misunderstandings via CMCs, enhancing social media, supporting intimacy in distributed families, and refining service provision

Digital Possessions in the Museum of Broken Relationships

This paper describes an interactive demo of our collaborative research activity with the Museum of Broken Relationships, one of Lonely Planet’s’Fifty Museums to Blow Your Mind’. In collaboration with the Museum, we are currently collecting data worldwide and cross-culturally on the digital possessions individuals associate with their romantic break up, combined with the stories behind those possessions. Taking a methodologically innovative approach, we adapt the Museum’s existing practices to conduct research (triangulating existing small-scale interview data) whilst simultaneously generating a new collection for the Museum. In doing so, we foreground contemporary HCI questions of ownership, curation, and presentation of self after a romantic breakup to the public. The demo will exhibit the digital possessions and associated stories that we collect, whilst also giving the CHI community the opportunity to contribute to the collection in real-time at the conference, by sharing digital possessions and stories of their own romantic breakups

HCI and Sensitive Life Experiences

HCI research has identified a number of life events and life transitions which see individuals in a vulnerable state, such as gender transition, domestic abuse, romantic relationship dissolution, bereavement, and even genocide. Although these life events differ across the human lifespan, considering them as a group of ‘sensitive life experiences’, and exploring the similarities and differences in how we approach those experiences as researchers could be invaluable in generating a better understanding of them. In this workshop, we aim to identify current opportunities for, and barriers to, the design of social computing systems that support people during sensitive life events and transitions. Participants will take part in activities centred around exploring the similarities and differences between their own and others’ research methods and results, drawing on their own experiences in discussions around carrying out research in these sensitive contexts

Should ChatGPT Write Your Breakup Text? Exploring the Role of AI in Relationship Dissolution

Relationships are essential to our happiness and wellbeing. The dissolution of a relationship, the final stage of relationship's lifecycle and one of the most stressful events in an individual's life, can have profound and long-lasting impacts on people. With the breakup process increasingly facilitated by computer-mediated communication (CMC), and the likely future influence of AI-mediated communication (AIMC) tools, we conducted a semi-structured interview study with 21 participants. We aim to understand: 1) the current role of technology in the breakup process, 2) the needs and support individuals have during the process, and 3) how AI might address these needs. Our research shows that people have distinct needs at various stages of ending a relationship. Presently, technology is used for information gathering and community support, acting as a catalyst for breakups, enabling ghosting and blocking, and facilitating communication. Participants anticipate that AI could aid in sense-making of their relationship leading up to the breakup, act as a mediator, assist in crafting appropriate wording, tones, and language during breakup conversations, and support companionship, reflection, recovery, and growth after a breakup. Our findings also demonstrate an overlap between the breakup process and the Transtheoretical Model (TTM) of behavior change. Through the lens of TTM, we explore the potential support and affordances AI could offer in breakups, including its benefits and the necessary precautions regarding AI's role in this sensitive process

Digital Possessions After a Romantic Break Up

© 2016 ACM. With technology becoming more pervasive in everyday life, it is common for individuals to use digital media to support the enactment and maintenance of romantic relationships. Partners in a relationship may create digital possessions frequently. However, after a relationship ends, individuals typically seek to disconnect from their ex-partner. This becomes difficult due to the partners' interwoven digital presence and digital possessions. In this paper, we report on a qualitative study exploring individuals' experiences of relationship break up in a digital context, and discuss their attitudes towards digital possessions from those relationships. Five main themes emerged: digital possessions that sustain relationships, comparing before and after, tainted digital possessions, digital possessions and invasions of privacy, involved and emotional reminiscing. Design opportunities were identified in managing attitudes towards digital possessions, disconnecting and reconnecting, and encouraging awareness of digital possessions

Digital Decoupling and Disentangling:Towards Design for Romantic Break Up

\u3cp\u3eRomantic relationships are often facilitated through digital technologies, such as social networking sites and communication services. They are also facilitated through 'digital possessions', such as messages sent to mobile devices and photos shared through social media. When individuals break up, digitally disconnecting can be facilitated by using those digital technologies and managing or curating these digital possessions. This research explores the break up stories of 13 individuals aged between 18 and 52. The aim of this work is to inform the design of systems focused on supporting individuals to decouple and disentangle digitally in the wake of a break up. Four areas of interest emerged from the data: communication, using digital possessions, managing digital possessions, and experiences of technology. Opportunities for design were identified in decoupling and disentangling, and designing around guilt. Copyright is held by the owner/author(s).\u3c/p\u3

International students’ movement to the UK and their digital transition on social media

This study examines the relationship between international students’ movement and their digital transition on Twitter. By using the Twitter API, timelines for 17 Saudi students studying in the UK were retrieved. An in-depth qualitative content analysis for these accounts was conducted for a two year period, before and after their move. The study identified a transition in the students’ timelines on Twitter in terms of what they post. This was usually characterized by an increase in posts related to (1) the UK and international contexts and (2) academic and language topics. The analysis also revealed that social media can play a positive role by providing students with needed information and supporting them to develop their English language. This study successfully identified a form of digital transition on Twitter that students go through and highlighted the positive role of social media in the students’ overall transition experience. This research serves as a good foundation for future researchers interested in the transition and digital technologies or social media

Transitions in digital personhood:Making sense of online activity in early retirement

We present findings from a qualitative study about how Internet use supports self-functioning following the life transition of retirement from work. This study recruited six recent retirees and included the deployment of OnLines, a design research artifact that logged and visualized key online services used by participants at home over four-weeks. The deployment was supported by pre- and post-deployment interviews. OnLines prompted participants’ reflection on their patterns of Internet use. Position Exchange Theory was used to understand retirees’ sense making from a lifespan perspective, informing the design of supportive online services. This paper delivers a three-fold contribution to the field of human-computer interaction, advancing a lifespan-oriented approach by conceptualizing the self as a dialogical phenomenon that develops over time, advancing the ageing discourse by reporting on retirees’ complex identities in the context of their life histories, and advancing discourse on research through design by developing OnLines to foster participant-researcher reflection informed by Self Psychology