Reflection on Social and Mobile Computing Tools

By Ellena Linden
Student Number: 40981806

1.0 Introduction

The following article is an expression of my experiences, reflecting upon a selection of collaborative web-based tools. The article discusses these applications in relation to one important aspect; awareness, by identifying critical issues that will be further dissected throughout this article. From both my first-hand experiences and information from other sources I have discovered that the more aware the user is in the collaborative context, the more intrusive both they and the applications are to their fellow peers. As a result, privacy and safety issues arise.

2.0 The selected groupware tools

Over the past few weeks I have engaged with seven different social and mobile computing applications, each of which focus on a particular activity. They are as follows:

Delicious - A social bookmarking site that uses tags to categorise bookmarks.
Flickr - Sharing Photos. Users can upload and tag photos, allowing others to comment.
Last.FM - Listen to and tag music, create playlists, and see how compatible you and your friend’s taste in music is.
Twitter - Follow friends and see what everyone across the globe is up to.
Facebook - A social networking tool
Google Calendar - Create and share events/schedules.
Blogger - A blogging tool that allows everyone to read and comment on your posts.

These applications will be referred to throughout this article.

3.0 Awareness in Groupware tools.

Groupware tools consist of a number of aspects such as communication, coordination, and above all, awareness. When a user engages in a particular tool, the activity is a balance of both cognitive and physical behaviour (Baber, 1997). The tools described above generate human-human activity in real time. I noticed that when I used these tools, I was constantly monitoring every action within the social context of these applications. Due to this knowledge, it is only appropriate to focus on the awareness aspect, as I found that identifying particular experiences and attributes were more prominently related to this term.

The term aware indicates perception; gaining knowledge and information from what the viewer perceives. Visibility can also be associated with the term. Peripheral awareness plays a major role in the social and mobile computing applications. As quoted by Sharp, Rogers & Preece, “this [term] refers to a person’s ability to maintain and constantly update a sense of what is going on in the physical and social context, through keeping an eye on what is happening in the periphery of their vision” (2007, p167).

All seven applications create a level of awareness, but some are more subtle than others.

4.0 Reflection: engaging with the tools

As quoted by Benyon, Turner & Turner, “awareness is ubiquitous” in all groupware tools (2005, p 750). Because of this, there are many issues that support this aspect. Benyon, Turner & Turner (2007, p750) supply a range of examples, and I would like to utilize two of them in the following section. The two main aspects that I will identify in the following article are:
1) Identity: who is participating?
2) Action: What are they doing?

Because all of the tools listed in section 2.0 are significantly communicated asynchronously, the question for the element of action can include the past-tense, what have they done rather than just present-tense, what are they doing.

Delicious focuses on social book-marking. When engaging with this tool, the level of awareness is quite subtle. Delicious presents itself differently to other groupware tools because it appears less intrusive. The profile each user creates doesn’t require a photo, nor does it display your age or location. In fact, every user’s identity is concealed and the only information that is displayed is the user’s tagged bookmarks. I did not engage or monitor this application as much as I did with the other tools because of the subtle awareness level. Although I could see who else had tagged the same bookmarks as me, I was not so much aware of other user’s actions. I could not see “who [was] talking with whom” (Sharp, Rogers & Preece, 2007, p166), nor could I communicate in any way with other users. Who is dragonlord776 or shannon71090? It did not seem like a community of peers, just pages of utter text.

Flickr is great for those who like to display their photos or artworks. It is a good tool for receiving feedback about your work from a community of both like-minded and dissimilar peers. I asked a few class mates about which tool(s) they used more often, and inevitably, Flickr rated quite high in terms of engagement. As I stated before, visibility plays a major role in awareness. Unlike Delicious, which is prominently text based, users can apply photos to their Flickr profile/gallery. This allows others to identify and distinguish the person within the image, and therefore, keep informed about who is participating. For example, l0rn5 added me to her contact list. After viewing her images and recognising that it was her, I accepted the invitation and was able to view her contacts. By identifying who else is participating within the network, I became aware of what images are on each member’s gallery, how many times each image has been viewed, and who has made comments. Flickr also gives me an insight of the circle of friends l0rn5 communicates with. Evidently, visuals provoke awareness.

Last.fm was a tool I engaged with significantly. Not only did the tool mediate activity by allowing me to listen to my favourite genres of music, but also has the option to connect with my peers. The usability of the tool is quite simple. To find a friend, I correctly anticipated that the User link at the top of the page would display a search function to find my friends and view their profiles. I felt that my awareness level was higher than any other applications I utilised. Seemingly, Sharp, Rogers & Preece’s quote (as stated before), “…a person’s ability to maintain and constantly update a sense of what is going on” (p166), was evidently displayed in my cognitive and physical behaviour. I noticed that I wanted to know how compatible my taste in music was to those around me. The participants were a mixture of both strangers and people I knew. By viewing their profiles it opened up a whole new level of information about that person; their appearance (if they had a profile image), sex, age, location, and the exact time of how long ago they listened to what tracks. I could also eavesdrop on the shoutouts that were directed to them (and not for me). My cognitive and physical behaviour showed that I was becoming more aware of the context; I wanted to know what was going on, and who was talking with whom. I seemed to read everything about the people I knew and a couple of strangers profiles. To put it one way, the more information I knew about others, the more aware I became, and as a result, I became more engaged with the tool.

Twitter, like all groupware, allows you to connect with the rest of the world. The site did not explain in enough detail the aim of this tool and therefore my interest in engaging with this tool was lost. The homepage displays a number of members who are participating. As highlighted in bright yellow at the top of the page, “What are you doing?”, I found that I was not interested in anyway of what the participants were doing, as compared to those in Last.fm. This was due to people’s responses as a number of boxes. Here is an example of a post:

momoco @Coh_t 私も、明日の午後からお休み突入です。もう少しなので頑張りましょうね♪ less than 5 seconds ago from web in reply to Coh_t

Also, a group mate had been sent a text message from Twitter to tell him to tell his friends to follow killboy. Using my phone, I followed the instructions to follow killboy. Nothing happened. I conclude Twitter as a bad experience.

Facebook is pretty similar to Myspace as they both connect people. Unlike Delicious which is less intrusive, Facebook raises privacy issues, which is quite concerning. I would say that Facebook promotes too much information about people. As I stated before, I admit to reading other comments people have posted (I’m sure I’m not the only one), but Facebook adopts a news feed listing every action that a friend(s) does. Facebook exposes identities within every user’s profile by stating who has recently become friends, when and what time. Becoming aware of others' actions makes me more aware of these events, but the circumstance is very intrusive.
For example, if I were to receive information about Jo Bloggs:

Jo Bloggs added the Love Compatibilty Test application
John Citizen and Jo Bloggs are now friends - 11:32pm

The term awareness now inherits privacy issues, which could, in doubt, lead to stalking or other forms of harassment.

Google Calendar considerably led to a negative outcome. The design is based around a physical calendar and therefore inherits these attributes. As stated by Baber, “[the activity] suggests some “knowledge” of the activity which can exist independently of the tool” (e.g. setting a reminder/booking/event on a particular time and date). Although it acts like a physical calendar, I soon discovered that it was not reliable. After setting all my uni deadlines on the calendar, I made sure an email reminder was sent to my inbox 1 day beforehand, for every event. I never received a single reminder for any of the events. After exploring the tool, I discovered that in the Settings > Calendar > Notifications function that there was a default setting; “remind me via pop-up 10 mins before each event”.

I did a search for friends’ calendars and could view and subscribe to them. Becoming aware that this intrusion was possible, I began to think about whether or not that person knew I was watching their calendar. In this case, who’s to say somebody’s not feeding from mine? There are safety issues that should be considered with these actions. A stranger could easily find out where, when and what time you will be at an event. I found that there were a number of participants using Google Calendar; students, musicians, and even doctors. I found a Residency Schedule for the North Shore University Hospital at Manhasset Department of Medicine Internal Medicine Residency in New York listing report dates, conferences etc. How safe are collaborative tools?

I use Blogger to write down ideas, concepts, reflections etc. but barely receive comments. Blogger is best used for group activities and discussions, as evidently proved in the COMP3505 blog. Blogger connects people differently compared to Facebook and Last.fm. Facebook and Last.fm encourage users to disclose personal information, for example, your name, status, sexual orientation etc. Blogger on the other hand (although you may choose to enter details about yourself in your profile) functions more as a publishing application, rather than a social tool. I have found that I have learnt about people’s personalities by the way they write, rather than from a list of personal information.

5.0 Conclusion

In conclusion, groupware tools that demand copious amounts of personal information, such as Last.fm and Facebook, are more intrusive. On saying this, however, I seemed to be more engaged in the tools that allowed me monitor those around me. The more aware of the information I was consuming, the more it became a concern to my own privacy and safety. Social tools will always have privacy and safety issues, and there will always be a level of awareness in every collaborative activity.

References:

Benyon, David, Phil Turner & Susan Turner. Designing Interactive Systems: People, Activities, Contexts, Technologies. England: Addison-Wesley, 2005.

Baber, Christopher. Beyond the Desktop: Designing and Using Interaction Devices. London: Academic Press, 1997.

Sharp, Helen, Yvonne Rogers & Jenny Preece. Interaction design : beyond human-computer interaction. England: Wiley, 2007.