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1.

Using email for social and domestic purposes: effectiveness in fulfillment of interpersonal communication motives

Authors: Kathy Buckner, Mark Gillham

Abstract: An in depth qualitative approach, involving social network analysis and interviews, is used to investigate the role of email in social communication. Taking each of the interpersonal communication motives of inclusion, control, affection, pleasure, escape and relaxation the extent to which they are supported through communication by email is investigated. The role of email in supporting the establishment and development of friendship is discussed.

3.

The Home Workshop

Authors: Lynne Baillie

Abstract: How families engage with their technologies in the home is important as there is an increasing interest being shown by manufacturers and researchers towards the home. The lessons from over twenty years research in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) indicates that people need to be involved in a process which may have an impact on their lives. The question arises, then, as to how researchers can investigate the needs and wants of people with respect to technology in the home.

This paper presents a new method that facilitates requirements gathering in the home with a heterogeneous group of users. The method is called the Home Workshop and it draws mainly on methods that have emerged from Participatory Design. A study of five households' use of technology was conducted in central Scotland, each were visited on three occasions, using the Home Workshop method. The data was analysed using grounded theory and ethnographic software. The results show that an investigation of this nature can help uncover clues to our relationship with technology in the home. It can also give directions to designers who are hoping to design technology for innovative homes.

3.

Evolving Digital World: How Teens are Influenced by the Digital Environments They Construct

Authors: Kaveri Subrahmanyam

Abstract: Over the past few years, children and teens are spending significant amounts of time interacting with the Internet. Among adolescents, the Internet is used both for instrumental (web surfing for homework) and for social purposes (e-mail, instant messaging, and chatting). In order to understand teens' interactions with these new technologies, I will address not only the social and psychological impact of teen Internet use but even more importantly, will address how teens themselves are actively shaping and constructing the culture of the interactive environments (e.g., chat rooms) that they inhabit.

How does teen Internet use impact their off-line social relationships, and their perceived sense of social support and loneliness? I will present data from a self-report study of approximately 200 15 to 17-year-old Los Angeles area teenagers. I will address questions regarding the strength of their relationships with online communication partners, and the impact of Internet use on their feelings of loneliness and perceptions of social support from family and peers. Preliminary results suggest that the nature of users' online activities and their perceived closeness with their online acquaintances might mediate the social and psychological effects of Internet use.

I suggest that in order to better understand the impact of these interactive technologies, we have to reconceptualize how we view digital environments. Rather than looking at the Internet as the bogey man that is external and by nature harmful to teens, we have to start looking at the digital environments that are inhabited by teens as ones that are actively constructed by the teens themselves. I use this approach in an empirical analysis of teen discourse in online chat rooms. I show that teens are constructing new ways to establish communicative coherence in their online conversations and to deal with old problems, such as those related to their developing sexual identity. Such an approach will not only help us understand the digital worlds created by teens, but even more importantly will help us understand how they are shaped by the worlds they create.