Technology-Mediated Experiences and Social Context: Relevant Needs in Private Vs. Public Interaction and the Importance of Others for Positive Affect

Abstract

Technologies, such as smartphones or wearables, take a central role in our daily lives. Making their use meaningful and enjoyable requires a better understanding of the prerequisites and underpinnings of positive experiences with such technologies. So far, a focus had been on the users themselves, that is, their individual goals, desires, feelings, and acceptance. However, technology is often used in a social context, observed by others or even used in interaction with others, and thus shapes social dynamics considerably. In the present paper, we start from the notion that meaningful and/or enjoyable experiences (i.e., wellbeing) are a major outcome of technology use. We investigate how these experiences are further shaped by social context, such as potential spectators. More specifically, we gathered private (while being alone) and public (while other people are present) positive experiences with technology and compared need fulfillment and affective experience. In addition, we asked participants to imagine a change in context (from private to public or public to private) and to report the impact of this change on experience. Results support the idea of particular social needs, such as relatedness and popularity, which are especially relevant and better fulfilled in public than in private contexts. Moreover, our findings show that participants experience less positive affect when imaginatively removing the present others from a formerly public interaction, i.e., when they imagine performing the same interaction but without the other people present. Overall, this underlines the importance of social context for Human-Computer Interaction practice and research. Practical implications relate to product development, e.g., designing interactive technologies that can adapt to context (changes) or allow for context-sensitive interaction sets. We discuss limitations related to the experimental exploration of social context, such as the method of data collection, as well as potential alternatives to address those limitations, such as diary studies.

Pilots for Healthy and Active Ageing (PHArA-ON) Project: Definition of New Technological Solutions for Older People in Italian Pilot Sites Based on Elicited User Needs

“…Current studies have highlighted the importance of acquiring relevant knowledge on user needs to develop technologies that can handle the real life situations of the older people [ 22 , 23 ]. When developing technological products, it is essential to consider social dynamics and contextual factors [ 24 , 25 ] in order to increase the usability and interaction with technological devices.…”

Reality Anchors: Bringing Cues from Reality to Increase Acceptance of Immersive Technologies in Transit

“…The investigation of the social acceptability of immersive technologies in public spaces is a relatively new topic but there are some initial insights. The current body of work can be divided into research that had a broad look at the social acceptability of new wearable technologies [27,28], or the use of headsets in public [11,22,30,46,72], including more focused work on gaze [3] and gestures [26,32], or discussion of the user and observer roles [4,69,72]. Some authors specifically looked at travelling contexts [5,11,15,65,74,75], but focused on limited application areas, such as entertainment [74], or had a more theoretical approach to the work, lacking in situ studies [15,65] and showed a need for further research in real-world environments [75].…”

The Attendant Card Set: A Research and Design Tool to Consider Perspectives of Attendants versus Users When Co-Experiencing Technology

“…In fact, there are various studies showing that attendants both influence and are influenced by the user (technology interaction). For example, Gentile et al [7] presented some insights on how others present can discourage users of public displays, and Von Terzi et al [8] suggested that formerly public interactions with technology were experienced less positive when imagining the same interaction but without other persons present. Other authors investigated the effects of user interactions on attendants and revealed annoyance (e.g., [9,10]), disturbance (e.g., [11,12]) distraction (e.g., [13,14]), and embarrassment (e.g., [15,16]) as potential consequences.…”