Chapter5_SocialInteraction

• Social interaction


  The social mechanisms used in conversations
• Questions raised by social tech

  • Are Face-2-Face conversations being superseded by social media interactions?
  • How many friends do you have on Facebook, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, and so on versus real life?
  • How much do they overlap?
  • How are the ways that we live and interact with one another changing?
  • Are the established rules and etiquette still applicable to online and offline?
• Remote conversations

  • Much research on how to support conversations when people are 'at a distance' from each other
  • Many applications have been developed
  • For example, email, videoconferencing, instant messaging, and chatrooms
  • Do they mimic or move beyond existing ways of conversing?
• VideoWindow system (Bellcore, 1989)


  • Shared space that allowed people 50 miles apart to carry on a conversation as if in the same room drinking coffee together
• Videoconferencing and telepresence rooms


  • Many to choose from to connect multiple people (for instance, Zoom)
  • Customized telepresence rooms for groups
• Telepresence robots


  • Enable people to attend events who could not do so, such as by controlling their robot remotely
  • In places such as schools, conferences, and museums
  • Early example: Beam+
  • Often dressed up to appear like the person to others at the event
  • Positive experience of being there
  • Susan Lechelt at ACM CHI
• Telepresence


  Refers to one party being present with another party, who is present in a physical space, such as a meeting room
• Social presence


  Refers to the feeling of being there with a real person when in virtual reality
• Facebook/Meta vision of socializing in a 3D world using VR

  • People presence through Avatars
  • Users experience each other through donning VR headsets
• Telepresence


  • How much realism and immersion are necessary to make it compelling?
  • Telepresence rooms try to make remote people appear to be realistic.
  • Use multiple high-definition cameras with eye-tracking features and directional microphones
• Co-presence


  • Co-located groups who want to collaborate
  • Many technologies have been designed to:
  • Enable groups to work, learn and socialize more effectively together
  • For example, tabletops, whiteboards, and public displays
• Coordination mechanisms


  • Verbal and non-verbal communication
  • Schedules, rules, and conventions
  • Shared external representations
• Face-2-Face coordinating mechanisms


  • Talking to each others is central
  • Non-verbal also used to emphasize and as a substitute
  • For instance, nods, shakes, winks, glances, gestures, and hand-raising
  • Formal meetings
  • Explicit structures such as agendas, memos, and minutes are employed to coordinate the activity
• Awareness mechanisms


  • Involves knowing who is around, what is happening, and who is talking with whom (Dourish and Bly, 1992)
• Sharable interfaces


  • Designed to capitalize on existing forms of coordination and awareness mechanisms
• The Reflect Table


  • LEDs lit up to reflect how much each member of the group spoke
  • Used microphones in front of each individual to do this
  • Study showed those who spoke the most changed their behavior the most
  • Those who spoke the least did not change their behavior
  • Why do you think this is?
• Retweeting goes viral

  • Connected millions of people for a fun cause
  • Many people found it amusing to join in and watch the numbers grow
• Social interaction is central to our everyday lives
• Social mechanisms, like turn-taking, enable us to collaborate and coordinate our activities
• Keeping aware of what others are doing and letting others know what you are doing are important aspects of collaborative working and socializing
• Many technology systems have been built to support telepresence, social presence, and co-presence
• Social media has brought about significant changes in how people keep in touch and manage their social lives
• Adverse effects of increased reliance on digital communication devices and social media

  • Reduced Quality of Conversation
  • Diminished Empathy
  • Fragmented Attention
  • FOMO
  • Privacy Concerns
• Greetings and turn-taking in different communication modes

  • On the phone
  • Online chatting or IM
• Greetings and turn-taking in face-to-face interactions

  • Person answering the call initiates conversation with "hello" or company/department name
  • Mutual greeting and farewell
• Greetings and turn-taking in online chatting or IM


  • No opening/ending greetings, just start with topic
  • Stop when got an answer, as in middle of conversation
• New conventions in online communication

  • Text-Based Greetings
  • Emojis, Emoticons and GIFs
  • Informality
  • Abbreviated Acronyms and Goodbyes
  • Assumed Availability
  • Response Time
  • Multitasking
  • Hyperlinking and Media Sharing
  • Global Connections
• How digital communication modes mimic and move beyond traditional communication

  • Mimic: Exchange of information, social interaction, conveyance of emotions
  • Move Beyond: Enhanced communication efficiency, accessibility, ability to connect across distances in real-time
• Examples of moving beyond traditional communication


  • Virtual meeting from different places
  • AR/VR/XR collaborations and social interaction
  • Instant messaging features like read receipts, multimedia sharing, engaging in multiple conversations simultaneously
• Example of early telepresence system

  • Two lounge areas connected with high bandwidth video and audio
  • 3 by 8 foot 'picture-window' to view the other room
  • Active 24 hours a day, anyone could speak to whoever was in the other room
• Findings from study on the telepresence system

  • Interactions were indistinguishable from face-to-face, except people spoke louder and constantly talked about the video system
  • People in same room talked more with each other than with those in video-linked room
  • Usability problems like people moving out of camera/microphone range when trying to get closer to talk
  • No way to know if being seen/heard by others, causing problems
  • Only allowed public conversations, no private whispering
• Realism and Immersion Factors


  • Visual Realism
  • Audio Quality
  • Haptic Feedback
  • Motion Tracking
  • Interactivity
  • Latency Reduction
• Tech Challenges

  • Graphics and Display Technology
  • Audio Processing
  • Haptic Devices
  • Motion Tracking and AI
  • Network Infrastructure
• • Peripheral awareness
  • Keeping an eye on things happening in the periphery of vision
  • Overhearing and overseeing—allows tracking of what others are doing without explicit cues
• • Situational awareness
  • Being aware of what is happening around you in order to understand how information and your actions will affect ongoing and future events
  • For example, air traffic control or an operating theatre
• • Several studies investigating whether sharable interfaces help people to work together better, have found:
  • More equitable participation
  • More natural to work around
  • More comfortable sitting around a table than standing in front of a display