Communicating Intimacy One Bit at a Time
From ThesisWiki
Contents |
Authors
Joseph 'Jofish' Kaye, Mariah K. Levitt, Jeffrey Nevins, Jessica Golden, Vanessa Schmidt
Overview
The authors drew upon other research that concluded meaningful interactions could happen, and in fact where enhanced by, minimal communication. They took this idea, along with the viewpoint that providing "presence and activity awareness" was a way to communicate intimacy, and designed a prototype for ultra-minimal intimate communication.
They call their system VIO, or Virtual Intimate Object, and it runs in the task bar of a Windows based computer. It consists entirely of a single circle, which turns bright red when another person clicks their circle and slowly fades over time. The participants in the study were all couples in long distance relationships and they used the tool in a variety of ways. The meaning behind the use of VIO changed based on the context such as time of day or use of other communication mediums.
This is the first software-based intimacy project I've read about. The authors note at the end that they are creating a similar physical prototype to see the differences in participant response.
Reflection
The paper has a discussion of gifts as a way of understanding the experience of VIO. This notion of gifts is interesting, particularly the expected reciprocity of it. This kind of minimal communication is all about the process of exchange itself. Some participants said they felt like using it was a requirement -- that their partner would be upset if they didn't. It's interesting that intimate communication can create expectation, unexpected meaning, and required reciprocity using such a simple channel.
This research begins to validate the idea that to make communication intimate it needs to have less, not more explicit meaning associated with it. Unlike the author's previous research the VIO is not unique to a specific couple, though it is designed as a communication channel used only between two people and only for particular types of "messages".
