Study Guide in Human Computer Interaction (draft copy) FM-AA-CIA-15 Rev.

0 10-July-2020

HCI I Human Computer Interaction Module 5 : Social Interaction

MODULE 5
Social Interaction

MODULE OVERVIEW

People are inherently social: we live together, work together, learn together, play together, interact and
talk with each other, and socialize. A number of technologies have been developed specifically to enable us to
persist in being social when physically apart from one another, many of which have now become part of the
fabric of society. These include the widespread use of smartphones, video chat, social media, gaming,
messaging, and telepresence. Each of these afford different ways of supporting how people connect.

MODULE LEARNING OBJECTIVES

At the end of this module, you should be able to:

 Explain what is meant by social interaction.
 Describe the social mechanisms that people use to communicate and collaborate.
 Explain what social presence means.
 Give an overview of new technologies intended to facilitate collaboration and group participation.
 Discuss how social media has changed how we keep in touch, make contacts, and manage our social and
working lives.
 Outline examples of new social phenomena that are a result of being able to connect online.

LEARNING CONTEN TS

5.1 Introduction
There are many ways to study what it means to be social. In this chapter, we focus on how people
communicate and collaborate face-to-face and remotely in their social, work, and everyday lives—with the goal
of providing models, insights, and guidelines to inform the design of “social” technologies that can better support
and extend them. A diversity of communication technologies is also examined that have changed the way
people live—how they keep in touch, make friends, and coordinate their social and work networks. The
conversation mechanisms that have conventionally been used in face-to-face interactions are described and
discussed in relation to how they have been adapted for the various kinds of computer-based conversations that
now take place at a distance. Examples of social phenomena that have emerged as a result of social
engagement at scale are also presented.

5.2 Being Social

Social interaction

 We live together, work together, play together, talk to each other, and socialize
 Social technologies developed to enable us to persist in being social when apart
 They differ in how they support us
 Some encourage social interactions (for example, family games with Alexa)
 Others have a negative impact on everyday conversations (Turkle, 2015)…

PANGASINAN STATE UNIVERSITY 1

Study Guide in Human Computer Interaction (draft copy) FM-AA-CIA-15 Rev. 0 10-July-2020

HCI I Human Computer Interaction Module 5 : Social Interaction

Are we spending too much time in our own digital bubbles?

Questions raised by social tech

 Are F2F 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?

5.3 Face to Face Conversation

Conversational mechanisms
Various mechanisms and ‘rules’ are followed when holding a conversation face to face, such as mutual
greetings

A: Hi there
B: Hi!
C: Hi
A: All right?
C: Good, how’s it going?
A: Fine, how are you?
C: OK
B: So-so. How’s life treating you?

Conversational rules

Sacks et al. (1978) conversation analysis of conversations propose three basic rules:
Rule 1: The current speaker chooses the next speaker by asking an opinion, question, or request

PANGASINAN STATE UNIVERSITY 2

Study Guide in Human Computer Interaction (draft copy) FM-AA-CIA-15 Rev. 0 10-July-2020

HCI I Human Computer Interaction Module 5 : Social Interaction

Rule 2: Another person decides to start speaking

Rule 3: The current speaker continues talking

More conversational rules

Turn-taking used to coordinate conversation
A: Shall we meet at 8:00?
B: Um, can we meet a bit later?
A: Shall we meet at 8:00?
B: Wow, look at him?
A: Yes what a funny hairdo!
B: Um, can we meet a bit later?
Back channeling to signal to continue and following
 Uh-uh, umm, ahh

Further conversational rules

Farewell rituals
 Bye then, see you, yeah bye, see you later….
Implicit and explicit cues
 For instance, looking at watch or fidgeting with coat and bags
 Explicitly saying, “Oh dear, look at the time, I must go, I’m running late…”

Breakdowns in conversation
When someone says something that is misunderstood:
 Speaker will repeat with emphasis:
A: “This one?”
B: “No, I meant that one!”
 Also use tokens:
Eh? Quoi? Huh? What?

What happens in online conversations?

 Do the same conversational rules apply?
 Are there different kinds of breakdowns?
 How do people repair them for:
 Email?
 Instant messaging?
 Texting?
 Skype or other videoconferencing software?

5.4 Remote conversations

 Much research on how to support conversations when people are ‘at a distance’ from each other

PANGASINAN STATE UNIVERSITY 3

Study Guide in Human Computer Interaction (draft copy) FM-AA-CIA-15 Rev. 0 10-July-2020

HCI I Human Computer Interaction Module 5 : Social Interaction

 Many applications have been developed

 For example, email, videoconferencing, instant messaging, and chatrooms

 Do they mimic or move beyond existing ways of conversing?

Early videophone from the 1960s

VideoWindow system
(Bellcore, 1989)
 Shared space that allowed people 50 miles apart to carry on a conversation as if in same room drinking
coffee together
 3 x 8 foot ‘picture-window’ between two sites with video and audio
 People did interact via the window, but strange things happened (Kraut, 1990)

Diagram of VideoWindow in use

PANGASINAN STATE UNIVERSITY 4

Study Guide in Human Computer Interaction (draft copy) FM-AA-CIA-15 Rev. 0 10-July-2020

HCI I Human Computer Interaction Module 5 : Social Interaction

Findings of how Video Window System was used

 Talked constantly about the system
 Spoke more to other people in the same room rather than in other room
 When trying to get closer to someone in the other place it had opposite effect—participants went out of range
of the camera and microphone
 No way of monitoring this

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

PANGASINAN STATE UNIVERSITY 5

Study Guide in Human Computer Interaction (draft copy) FM-AA-CIA-15 Rev. 0 10-July-2020

HCI I Human Computer Interaction Module 5 : Social Interaction

Telepresence and social presence

 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’s vision of socializing in a 3D world using VR

 Two avatars talking at a virtual table

 Users experience each other through donning VR headsets

How much realism and immersion are necessary..?

 …in telepresence to make it compelling?
 Telepresence rooms try to make remote people appear to be life-like
 Use multiple high definition cameras with eye-tracking features and directional microphones
 Does FaceTime have as much presence as more high definition settings?

5.5 Co-Presence
What is 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

PANGASINAN STATE UNIVERSITY 6

Study Guide in Human Computer Interaction (draft copy) FM-AA-CIA-15 Rev. 0 10-July-2020

HCI I Human Computer Interaction Module 5 : Social Interaction

Coordination mechanisms
 When a group of people act or interact together, they need to coordinate themselves
 For example, when playing football or navigating a ship
 To do so, they use:
 Verbal and non-verbal communication
 Schedules, rules, and conventions
 Shared external representations

F2F coordinating mechanisms

 Talk 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)
 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

Sharable interfaces
 Designed to capitalize on existing forms of coordination and awareness mechanisms
 Several studies investigating whether they 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

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?

PANGASINAN STATE UNIVERSITY 7

Study Guide in Human Computer Interaction (draft copy) FM-AA-CIA-15 Rev. 0 10-July-2020

HCI I Human Computer Interaction Module 5 : Social Interaction

Sococo floor plan of a virtual office:

who is where and who meeting with whom

Playing together in same space

 Visitors using an AR sandbox at the V and A
 Visitors sculpt landscapes out of sand
 System reacts with changing superimposed digital colored landscape
 Enables creative forms of collaboration

PANGASINAN STATE UNIVERSITY 8

Study Guide in Human Computer Interaction (draft copy) FM-AA-CIA-15 Rev. 0 10-July-2020

HCI I Human Computer Interaction Module 5 : Social Interaction

5.6 Social engagement

 Refers to participation in activities of a social group
 Social exchange where people give or receive something from others
 Voluntary, unpaid and often altruistic (in the sense of sharing and doing good for others)
 Websites often used as hub to connect people
 Retweeting is a powerful way of connecting millions of people…

Retweeting goes viral

 The epic Twitter battle between Ellen DeGeneres and Carter Wilkerson
 Millions retweeted in the space of hours
 Connected millions of people for a fun cause
 Many people found it amusing to join in and watch the numbers grow

Dilemma: Is it OK to talk with a dead person using a chatbot?

 Eugenia Kuyda lost a close friend in a car accident who was only in his 20s
 She took all his texts sent over the course of his life and made a chatbot using them
 Chatbot responds to text messages so that Eugenia can talk to her friend as if he was alive
 Is this a creepy or comforting way to deal with grief?
 Is it respectful of the dead person?

KEY POINTS

 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

PANGASINAN STATE UNIVERSITY 9

Study Guide in Human Computer Interaction (draft copy) FM-AA-CIA-15 Rev. 0 10-July-2020

HCI I Human Computer Interaction Module 5 : Social Interaction

 Social media has brought about significant changes in how people keep in touch and manage their social
lives

REFERENCES

References:
 Allan Dix, Janet Finlay, Gregory D. Abowd, Russell Beale (2004) Human-Computer Interaction
(3rd Ed.) Pearson Prentice Hall
 Preece, Rogers, Sharp (2019) Interaction Design Beyond Human-Computer Interaction (5th Ed.)
Wiley
 Interaction Design - beyond Human-Computer Interaction ([Link])

ANSWER TO YOUR TURN EXERCISES

In-depth activity

The goal of this activity is to analyze how collaboration, coordination, and communication are supported in
online video games involving multiple players.
The video game Fortnite arrived in 2017 to much acclaim. It is an action game designed to encourage teamwork,
cooperation, and communication. Download the game from an app store (it is free) and try it. You can also
watch an introductory video about it at [Link]
Answer the following questions.
1. Social issues
(a) What is the goal of the game?
(b) What kinds of conversations are supported?
(c) How is awareness of the others in the game supported?
(d) What kinds of social protocols and conventions are used?
(e) What types of awareness information are provided?
(f) Does the mode of communication and interaction seem natural or awkward?
(g) How do players coordinate their actions in the game?

PANGASINAN STATE UNIVERSITY 10