February 17, 2006
The stuff we haul around with us
For the past year or so, I've been doing some work with Daisuke and the folks at Intel's People and Practices Group (Ken, Scott, and Michele) on "mobile kits," or the stuff we haul around with us in our everyday life moving around the city. Kazys recently pointed me to a Washington Post article on "The Burdens of the Modern Beast" that suggests that are mobile kits are getting ridiculously large. I doubt the urbanites we have been tracking in our studies think of themselves as the vanguard of wearable computing, but in many ways they are. Just like the mobile phone became the popular manifestation of the theories of ubicomp, contemporary mobile kits of urbanites are the real-life instantiation of wearable computing.
After a pilot study last year, we're in the middle of a three year longitudinal study of mobile kit use in the greater Tokyo area. I feel like its a natural extension of our work with mobile phones, expanding the focus to include all of the stuff that people haul around with them. As the mobile phone has taken on other portable object functions - the camera, music player, gaming, digital cash, etc. - our research space has also expanded from communications to a broader pallette of human activities. Media content delivery over handhelds and economic transactions seem at least at first blush to be the hotspots. I'm particulary excited that we are going to be following the same folks for several years to get a sense of how their use evolves along with life stage transitions and changing technology capabilities.
This work is very much in progress, but I recently posted a paper that Daisuke presented that resulted from our fist round of mobile kit research. This paper just talks about our research in Japan, but we did the study in three cities - Tokyo, Los Angeles, and London. Scott's paper for Ubicomp 2005 analyzed the work in relation to issues in ubiquitous and wearable computing, and I also have a short rant on portable objects in a forthcoming new edition of Ted Nelson's classic Computer Lib|Dream Machines.
Posted by Mizuko Ito at February 17, 2006 4:35 PM
Comments
This reminds me of some fun we had on Flickr a little while back with the "whatsinyourbag" tag. :)
I love this flickr tag. It's like viral ethnography (^ ^). Maybe I can find some way to mine this as data in our study. Or would that be a violation of norms of use of flickr images? Hmmm.
are you familiar with Jennifer Gonzalez's concept of the autotopography (in the book prosthetic territories: politics & hypertechnologies) as a defininition of self through the objects which are most familiar or essential to the person? http://www.media.mit.edu/gnl/publications/jen&marina_iccima_97.pdf uses the theory in the context of computing.
also, the short story "The Things They Carried" . . .
I for one am rather a minimalist, preferring to keep everything digital, except that I carry a lot of things like makeup that are essential to my performance of gender (i wonder to what extent topographies are gendered), which is something that's really central to my life because performing high femme is so unique within the lesbian community, and because the higher-femme I am the more invulnerable to daily slings & arrows (not to mention "blink" style judgements on me as "looking like" a person with a brain disorder) I am. I also have a small kit of things useful in treating disability-related emergencies. Other than that, I just carry a couple of books, maybe extra pieces of clothing dependent on weather, and food & water. When I first graduated from high school and really felt the need to assert my identity i covered my bookbag in pins reflecting it, but i don't feel the need for that anymore. I've also carried different things for various jobs, especially the ones where I felt proud of the job: some I remember are pink flash drives on nanotech lanyards, ID badges on beaded chains, multitools & electric testers . . . right now i'm not really proud of my job so there's nothing i carry.
Thanks for the references museumf. I'm still muddling over the issue of identity display through the objects we carry around. I think I've been stuck in a fairly communication/instrumental mindset because of my focus on mobile phones thus far. But I do need to move beyond that.
Dear Mrs. Ito,
I have found your website 2 years ago already and found it very inspiring in several ways. First, you are doing research on both technology uses and media reception, which are areas of studies I would like to explore as part of my Ph.D. project in Media and Communication Studies. Moreover, you are studying fans of Japanese animation, a topic very close to mine. Second, I really like the design of your website as a mix between a blog and archive for more long-lasting material, like papers, articles and books. I have been working on several personal websites, and for the last one, was definitely inspired by yours.
Even though I haven't been able to advance a lot on my Ph.D. project recently, as I have to work full-time outside the academic realm, I have decided to contact you now, as I'm discovering the new face of your website. Indeed, I have just read that you are collaborating with people at Intel and clicking on the link, just found the name of Genevieve Bell, whose articles I have discovered recently. I was actually thinking of contacting her as well as I thought that her study of the way people integrate technology in their daily social life and the meaning they derive from its use is similar to what I would like to do in my Ph.D. project.
For these reasons, I would be very interested in getting in touch with you. Indeed, it would be great to learn more about your researches and maybe to get some advices from you, as you seem quite experienced in this field.
I thank you in advance for your consideration and wish you good luck with your present researches. I'm looking forwards to reading more about it on this website!
Ariane Beldi
Hello Mimi
I don't know if you remember me - I was a friend of Joichi's years back. I read about the pictures of your daughter's bento box and was very thrilled that you have a daughter! Also, I'm in the middle of writing my third comic novel, which has elements to do with people becomibng mobiel and virtual - and reading this post reminded me of the little film about wearable computing I mad with Joy Mountford and the Interval people back then. So I'm really just saying, in a rambly way, Hi, and I'm glad you're still doing such interesting stuff
XXS
Nice to see you here Sheila! Any chance you have a link to the wearable computing bit you did? Would love to see it.