Hello beautiful people!
Day two of the program was really fun! I had the opportunity to put my art skills to work by creating a Christmas card that used a red LED light to light up Rudolph’s nose. It has been a while since I have soldered LED lights in a circuit, the last time was when I worked on an art project in which I incorporated LED lights and had to wire it together to a battery. This short paper circuit project was a great refresher for me and a great learning experience for my peers. Here are some pictures of the finished product.
Along with our paper circuit activity, we got introduced to Arduino. It is an interesting programing device that allows you to simply program it to do various tasks for you. I am super excited to see how this device will become incorporated in our program, hopefully we get to program it to do something fun (Ben told us not to take a picture once we got the unit to start blinking).
For homework, we were asked to go to either a restaurant or bus stop to observe the ways people interact with their cell phone, specifically young adults. I decided to go to Chipotle to do this and sat in outside patio. I sat across from a group of two young college students: one male and one female. My attention was automatically drawn to the female because as she was sitting down to begin eating her food, she automatically took out her phone and began using it. However, the subject placed her phone on the table but facing up so she can still see when she gets a notification. They both were not interacting with their phone much and you can sense that they were trying to be polite to one another and focus on their conversation instead. Nonetheless, the female subject kept glancing at her phone every minute or so to make sure she has not received a notification or whether the notification requires her immediate attention. The subject seems to be always aware of her phone without losing attention of the man siting across from her. The male subject does not take out his phone until he is done eating but quickly puts it away to not be rude to the woman. As the couple leave the restaurant, the female subject puts her phone in her pocket but quickly retracts it into her hand. From there, I observe the subject walking around to the bars with her phone in her hand the entire time yet not doing anything with it. Why not use her pockets if she is not using? However, once the man in front of her starts being on his phone, she, too, also follows lead. My form of observation method was a combination of Temporal Mapping and Object Mapping. I was interested to see the body movement that would be deemed as hesitation and routined, but also the placing of the object and how it effected the subjects interaction with it. If I were to submit this study for IRB Approval, it would more than likely fall under expedited because the minimal risk is not present much but I am still using humans as my subjects, most likely needing consent (but it is a public area so maybe not).
I have created a bio on my LaTex page. Here is the link if you have nothing else to do and would like to know more about me! (: https://www.sharelatex.com/read/jfqvhgybnkrh
Haley MacLeod , Ben Jelen , Annu Prabhakar , Lora Oehlberg , Katie Siek , Kay Connelly, Asynchronous remote communities (ARC) for researching distributed populations, Proceedings of the 10th EAI International Conference on Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare, p.1-8, May 16-19, 2016, Cancun, Mexico
Summary:
In “Asynchronous Remote Communities (ARC) for Researching Distributed Populations”, the paper focused not so much on the results of their study but the effectiveness of their methods. The 22 week long research consisted of eleven female participants ranging from the age 32 to 68, who have a rare disease. The study was group-based and online, using Facebook as the only platform of interaction. The use of an online platform resulted in a lack of participation as time progressed. The researchers went in depth in analyzing their methods and their results, and trying to find better approaches to optimize participation. The findings seem to show little to no interest from the participants, for their effort diminished as the study progressed. This might be due to a busy lifestyle or just grew to distaste the research after a while. Nonetheless, it is fundamental for researchers to critique their own methods and not use their participants as scapegoats. In other words, it is good to hold yourself accountable when you are the sole creator of an entire study and participants do not have the same motives as you.
Maestre, J.F., MacLeod, H., Connelly, C.L., Dunbar, J.C., Beck, J., Siek, K., Shih, P.C.: Defining through expansion: Conducting asynchronous remote communities (arc) research with stigmatized groups. In: ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (2018)
Summary:
In “Defining Through Expansion: Conducting Asynchronous Remote Communities (ARC) Research with Stigmatized Groups”, the paper focuses on the effectiveness that the ARC research method can have on a stigmatized group. The study consisted of 19 participants (11 men, 7 women, 1 queer) and their range in age was from 18–60 and the number of years living with HIV ranged from 1–30 years. The study used the Facebook platform as the only form of communication amongst participants, allowing them to create their own relationships as well by supporting one another. Unlike “Asynchronous Remote Communities (ARC) for Researching Distributed Populations”, the participants in this study were much more interactive with the study and seemed to be much more invested. Not only did the study prove that the ARC research method is effective when studying marginalized groups, but it also gave back to it participants by giving them another channel of support through the online social media platform (the participants continued using the private page to talk amongst one another).
If you feel like things are not going your way or feel lost, remember that we only have one life so do not waste it by constantly worrying about the What Ifs and focus on your accomplishments.
Keep your head up and heart open,
G