Digital Ritualized Interaction: Towards Conceptualizing Mediated Familial Bonding via Family Connecting Technology

Abstract

Appropriation of connecting technology in the context of family use has revealed its affordance as mediating tool to facilitate familial bonding, as that which is beyond communication. Yet, its operationalization through the HCI design is still not extensively studied. It is postulated that the theory of Interaction Ritual and family ritual could serve as a lens for understanding of how interface design mediates such bonding in digital environment. As theories, they are specifically tailored to understanding interactions among people and technologies which further assist in conducting an interpretative analysis in producing mappings of interaction design concepts to bonding eliciting design features informed by earlier work. The model serves as a new foundation to inform appropriate design of future family connecting technology in pursuit of familial bonding.

Young adults' perceptions of technology use with extended family

“…In addition, women are still largely responsible for kinkeeping or maintaining contact and communication with family members in the digital age. In their study of Malaysian WhatsApp users, Kamal et al (2016) found that women were still largely responsible for kinkeeping by facilitating communication and keeping conversations going. It may be that the nature of kinkeeping does not change in technological settings and therefore women may be more likely to find social media with extended family members in more positive terms.…”