Barry Brown
On the iPhone
April 6th, 14:00
Digiteo Moulon building (660)
Abstract
In this talk I’ll cover some of our recent work using video to study mobile phone interaction and use - in particular how mobile phones are used collaboratively in social situations. Over the last three years we have collected hundred of hours of recordings of mobile device use in diverse settings. We have recorded drivers using GPS to navigate, iPhone use recorded with wearable cameras, and remote recordings of mobile phone screens with ambient audio. These videos let us document how mobile devices have become threaded into diverse worlds of activity and how reliant we have become on our mobile devices. In this talk I will focus on the interaction and talk around mobile devices, arguing that this can be as important as interaction with mobile devices. A web search might be shared with a friend, GPS's instructions can become the subject of a joke, or the composition of a text message discussed with a partner. Our videos let us see how conversations are influenced by mobile devices, through providing topics and interruptions, but also how device use is co-ordinared to fit with conversation, such as showing or narrating on phone activity. Our focus on mobile phone use has also led us recent years to examine the sorts of changes apps such as Uber and Airbnb are producing, so I’ll finish the talk with a short discussion of our recent work on the so called ’sharing economy’.
Biography
http://barbro.tumblr.com. is a Professor at Stockholm University, and research director at Mobile Life. He was previously an associate professor at the University of California, a research fellow at the University of Glasgow and a research scientist at Hewlett-Packard’s research labs in Bristol. His recent work has focused on the sociology and design of leisure technologies - computer systems for leisure and pleasure. Recent publications span top forums in both social and technology fields, and include studies of activities as diverse as games, tourism, museum visiting, the use of maps, television watching and sport spectating. He has a book forthcoming with MIT press titled "enjoying machines", and he has edited books on music consumption and mobile phone use. His qualifications include a degree in computer science from the University of Edinburgh, and a PhD in sociology from the University of Surrey.